Between You, Me, and the Stove
by Nemo the Everbeing
Summary: Father Mulcahy hears eight confessions and tries to remember that God moves in mysterious ways. Father Pierce hears one and concludes that God might be drunk.  A series of character studies and episode tags.
1. And A Little Child Shall Lead Them

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Summary: Father Mulcahy hears eight confessions and tries to remember that God moves in mysterious ways. Father Pierce hears one and concludes that God might be drunk.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Author's Note: The only religion I've ever studied in-depth is Judaism, which means that my knowledge of Catholicism is very limited. Luckily, I had two fantastic betas, one of whom knew a lot more about Catholicism, and the other of whom who knew a lot about M*A*S*H. Huge thanks to both of them for helping shape this story. Any residual mistakes are mine.

Historian's Note: Takes place after 'Abyssinia, Henry'

oOo oOo 1: And a Little Child Shall Lead Them oOo oOo

Dear Sis,

I find myself writing you every day, it seems, just to have someone to talk to. It's not that I don't like the people here; it's just that I don't want to burden them with my problems. Everyone is burdened enough as it is. We talk about the food in the mess tent, the state of the latrines, or any number of other trivial subjects. Anything to avoid our current harsh reality.

Something changed, I think, when Colonel Blake's plane was shot down. It's strange to think we were innocent before his death: certainly not the innocence of children, considering the staggering amount of alcohol consumed per week. But I suppose, in a way, we were children. We saw only our sheltered view of this war, the bodies on the table ephemeral no matter how we tried to care about each of them, and to engage with them as people as well as patients. We see death every day, all around us. Wounds that I would have never believed anyone could survive have become routine. But for all that, the war didn't touch us out here. The soldiers came to us, but rarely the battle.

That changed when Colonel Blake died. I think it reminded us that death can come for any of us at any time, with no predictability. That brutal reminder of our own mortality scared us all, an added layer to our grief. I know I should look to death as a transition rather than an end. Those who die are with God, it was their time to join Him, and those are good things. Such beliefs should comfort all people of faith.

I tell myself that every time I say the Last Rites over the dying or dead, and every time I see a nurse or a doctor lift a sheet in the bus, only to drop it again. I tell myself that death is just another part of our spiritual lives. Most of the time, I believe it, and I can go about my life with less fear than those around me because I believe. But there have been moments when the North Koreans have shelled the camp, or snipers pick at our tents through the night, that my faith shakes in the face of my own mortality. It only hits me when I'm alone, thank the Lord. When there are patients to see to, I don't have time to indulge in my own doubts and fears. Maybe that's why I'm so desperate to keep busy: I'm worried that if I stop for too long I'll look at the foundations of my faith and I will find them rotting. Oh, Kathy, how did I come to this?

With such a foundation, is it any wonder that I worry I'm just not a very good priest? God knows I try to act in all ways as His representative in accordance with Church doctrine, but some days it's barely possible to make it through a surgery session without being sick. When the nurses aren't available, how can I not come to the aid of those in need? But it's very hard to feel like anyone's representative when a doctor uses your hand to clamp off an artery and all you can think about is how the blood is creeping up your sleeve.

I confess as regularly as I'm able, but that service isn't very available around here. There are plenty of priests at ICOR in Seoul, but I rarely get leave to go and see them. Some of the chaplains tour nearer to the front lines, but more often than not they aren't priests. That's why I'm writing you, I suppose. I need to get this off my chest, and in lieu of a priest, you're it. I hope you don't mind.

I've expanded my hours since Colonel Blake's death, in case some of the people here are looking for spiritual guidance, or even just an ear to bend. I thought I should post my hours of availability on the bulletin board, but I didn't want to seem pushy. After several hours with no takers, I decided to take a walk to the mess tent in hopes some fresh air would clear my mind. If my presence also reminded people I was there and ready to listen, all the better.

I suppose it was just something to do, some way of feeling useful. There were lights on in some tents, but most were dark by that time of night. I passed close to the office on my way, and I heard Radar crying. Oh, Kathy, Henry Blake was like a father to that boy. We all knew losing Colonel Blake was harder for him than any of us, but I had thought that other people—Hawkeye or Trapper or even Corporal Klinger—were seeing to him. I didn't step in because I don't like to intrude. I know that some other chaplains think I'm not assertive enough, and I once heard two of them whispering something about weak faith as I passed them at a conference. I'm not really in a position to stand up to that until I've reconciled the issue with myself, but my own faith has very little to do with the reason why I prefer to let my flock choose when and if they want to talk to me. I just don't like to push, Sis. The drive to evangelize seems at odds with my vow of humility. And besides, proselytizing doesn't really seem helpful over here; it just makes people feel guilty. Who am I to say I have the only ticket to Heaven? That all these delightful people I've met—there are quite a lot of Buddhists in Korea, you know—are damned? I'm crossing myself as I write this, because it's not for me to question doctrine, but that doesn't seem fair. If God loves us, doesn't He love all of us?

Maybe I should scratch that entire paragraph out before I send this to you. I really shouldn't burden you with my crisis of faith any more than I should burden the people here with my petty problems.

Back to Radar. I stopped outside the office, my natural inclination not to barge in fighting the urge to comfort the grieving. I needed to do something.

I opened the door to the office, but I didn't see Radar on his cot or at his desk. A single light was shining from the inner office. I peered through the window, and I saw Radar, his teddy bear clutched in one hand, sorting through paperwork and placing some of it in a box. He looked so miserable, Kathy, working through the night with his bear.

I closed my eyes. It wouldn't help anyone if I went to pieces too.

Once I was convinced I'd mustered the wherewithal to continue with some sort of equanimity, I knocked on the door. Radar shouted and dropped to the floor behind the desk. Terrified I'd given the poor boy an aneurism, I pushed my way into the office. Radar appeared over the edge of the desk, his bear clutched to his chest and his eyes round behind his glasses.

"Geez, Father!" he said when he saw me. "You nearly scared me out of my skin."

"I'm sorry, my son. It wasn't my intention. I was passing by and, well, I heard you."

"Oh, Boy. You heard me? You think other people did too?" He scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand.

"Even if they did, I think they'd understand," I said.

Radar doesn't often seem genuinely resentful of anything, despite the shocking amount of work he's given as the company clerk. For such a young man he has a remarkable capacity to take responsibility in stride. But he did look resentful then, and tired. "You haven't been talking to Major Burns much, huh? He said he wanted the desk cleared out by tomorrow, Father! All the stuff Colonel Blake left for him—it was supposed to help keep the camp running. And he just wants to start from scratch, even though half these forms are regulation, and he's going to make me dig them back out when he realizes he needs them. I know he's in charge now, and we gotta do what he wants, but every time I try to pack it all up I start crying all over the place, and then my glasses fog up, and then I can't see, and how can I see what I'm packing up then, huh? I could lose something important or something, and then where would we be?" He lifted a framed photograph from the box and held it out to me. The glass plate showed a spider-web crack. "Look. Colonel Blake forgot this. I was sort of thinking of sending it to him once he got back to the States."

I took it from him. Henry Blake smiled at me, captured in black and white holding a large fish while he stood on a dock. The cracks stated in the corner, and obscured his body and most of the fish. "Oh," I whispered, "oh my."

"I didn't mean to!" Radar said. "It just slipped! I tried to catch it and everything, but it fell on the ground and it just broke. And now I can't send it to Mrs. Colonel, because she'll think I dropped it on account of me not liking him, even though I thought he was the best!"

"She won't think that, my son," I said.

Radar didn't look at me. I don't think he heard a word I said.

"My son?" I tried again. "Radar?"

He stood there, shaking and staring at the photograph in my hands as though he, and not the North Koreans, had killed Colonel Blake.

"Radar," I tried again. I touched his arm.

Radar jerked, and the photo was jostled from my hands. For a moment it hung between us in the air. We both fumbled for it. I didn't want it to fall any more than he did, but it slipped through both our fingers and hit the floor. The glass of the frame gave way, and scattered across the concrete.

"Oh, God," I said.

For a moment we both stared at the glass on the ground. Then Radar really let me have it. "What did you do that for, huh?" he shouted at me, shrill and furious. "Now I really can't send it! Oh, boy, you shouldn't have even come in here. What am I supposed to tell Mrs. Colonel? All his stuff went down with his plane, you know that, and all I had was this dumb photo, and now it's broke and I know it's not really your fault, but gee, Father! You really loused this one up!"

Sis, I don't know if you've ever been in the position to get shouted down by a teenage boy and absolutely deserve it, but it's a horrible experience. I dropped to my knees, hoping to put the pieces back together enough that it wouldn't be such a loss, but in my heart I knew I'd broken something that couldn't be mended.

I swept at the glass with my bare hands. I shouldn't have, but I just wanted to set things right, and I'd failed miserably enough I was ready to try anything that might ease Radar's burden.

"I'm sorry," I said, but I couldn't bring myself to look up at him. "I'm so sorry, Radar. Oh, good God, I am so very sorry!"

And then, as you might have guessed, a piece of glass slipped in my hand and sliced into my palm. I pulled my hand to my chest, blood dripping onto the floor with the glass.

I heard a strangled noise. When I looked up I saw Radar, also crouched down, staring at my bleeding hand. His face was white and his expression stricken. We see blood every day here, Kathy: in bottles and bodies. The operating room sometimes has it spattered on the ceiling, it gets so thick, but it's somehow worse out of that context. In isolation, particularly in Colonel Blake's office, the blood dripping between my fingers onto the broken glass took on a dreadful significance.

"Radar?" I asked.

He launched himself at me, and bowled me over. I sat down hard, and before I could react at all he was hugging the stuffing out of me.

I patted him on the back and wondered what more I could do to make the situation worse. I couldn't think of a thing until I realized I was using the back of his uniform as a blotter. I snatched my pocket handkerchief out of my pants and gripped it tightly. The bloodstains weren't very noticeable, and the local laundresses are very good at getting blood out of things by this point, but I knew it was just one more mess I'd made.

"Radar—"

"I'm sorry, Father. Oh, boy! Oh, geez, I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. It's not your fault. I mean, yeah you broke the picture, but I shouldn't have let you have it like that. You didn't mean to, I know that."

"Radar, it's all right," I said around his shoulder. "I don't mind."

I realized he wasn't even listening to me, and that he wasn't loosening his grip. I feel quiet and focused on being as supportive a presence as I could possibly be. If Radar needed to cry out the pain, I could be the shoulder he did it on. What's that motto all the doctors around here have? Oh, yes: first, do no harm. I can't seem to help doing harm, particularly when I want to prevent it. But I believe God knows all, and He forgives us all our stupid mistakes. But we have to meet Him in the middle, Kathy. We have to keep trying to do the right thing. If I had done harm in my efforts to help, I could stay until the harm had faded.

I sat with Radar sobbing into my shoulder, soaking it with snot and tears, for almost fifteen minutes. I wasn't foolish enough to utter the phrases 'everything will be all right' (I have a hard time believing that over here) or 'God has a plan' (which is very comforting when I believe it, but, well, no need to go over that again).

After a while, Radar stopped crying and he sat back. The glass crunched as he shifted, and he turned away from me. I really thought I'd managed to make a bad hash worse, until he turned back with the broken frame in his hands.

He pulled off the back of the frame and freed the photo. He was looking at the image, but I could see something written on the back: the words 'Henry and His Only Friend, June '48''. It was probably meant as a joke, but it didn't strike me as terribly funny. I closed my eyes, and prayed that Colonel Blake now understood exactly how wrong that sentiment was.

"It's not true at all," I whispered.

Radar looked at me, and I gestured at the words. He flipped the photo over and read the back. His eyes brimmed, and I thought he would cry again, but he rubbed the tears away with his bear's paw and said, "No, it sure isn't."

I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm sometimes not the most confident man. I looked up at Radar over the rims of my glasses. It makes things easier when I can't actually see the people I disappoint. I thank God every day for my poor eyesight. Maybe it was my insecurity talking, Kathy, but I had to ask, "Did I help at all, Radar? Or should I have just stayed away?"

"No!" Radar said, but I'm not certain he wasn't just trying to make me feel better. "No, Father, I didn't mean what I said before. Honest. I was just mad, see? You're good at this whole priest deal. I mean, you're the best priest I ever met!"

"How many priests have you met?"

"Well, I think there was one on the other side of Ottumwa, but Mom didn't want me going to that part of town. She's not crazy about Catholics. Sorry."

Radar couldn't know how often I've heard just that. It loses its sting after a lifetime. He did seem genuinely apologetic, though, so I didn't take offense. "It's quite all right, Radar."

He looked down at the photo, and then stood up. I stood as well, brushing glass off myself. The cut had already stopped bleeding.

"We should finish getting this stuff into boxes, Father," Radar said. "I hear they're making a push tomorrow, and we'll need all the forms in the right boxes for when Major Burns changes his mind and wants them again."

"Of course," I said. I cast about, and then put a stack of half-filled Section 8 forms for Klinger in the box labeled 'Klinger'. In the corner of one of them, written in Colonel Blake's handwriting, were the words 'NOT CRAZY – JUST DRIVING ME NUTS'. I smiled.

"What?" Radar asked.

I showed him the form.

He smiled too. Is it terrible that that's become my measuring stick of success over here, Kathy? I no longer expect to save anyone, or even lead many of them closer to God. I just hope to make their lives here easier, if only for a moment.

We put the rest of the forms in the boxes, and made certain each was labeled according to its contents. Radar was so tired by the time we were done that I had to help him stumble to his cot, where he lay down in his uniform and fell asleep. I tucked a blanket around him and made my way back to my own tent.

Today, sure enough, Major Burns decided he did need the forms after all. I saw Radar and Klinger unpacking, and perhaps it was wishful thinking on my part, or even willful arrogance, but I think Radar seemed a bit calmer. I can't say that was my doing, because it could have been anything really, but maybe I helped. I'd like to think I did.

Your brother,

Francis


	2. Lead Us Not into Temptation

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: This chapter takes place immediately after the episode "Hanky Panky".

oOo oOo 2: Lead Us Not into Temptation oOo oOo

Dear Sis,

I don't know how to go about writing this, Kathy. It's not just a difficult subject, it's a question of right and wrong. I need to talk about this with someone, but it was practically a confession. I suppose it's not a confession in the strictest sense, BJ not being Catholic, and bringing beer. But neither his Protestantism nor his choice of beverage change the issue of trust. I'm torn between the need to discuss this, and my complete inability to do so and still honor my vows.

I think the only answer is to write it all down. After I'm done I'll decide what I should do with this letter. It's not a good solution—even writing this treads dangerous ground—but I can't think of anything better.

My confessional hours are now posted on the bulletin board. You told me it would be all right to do so, and no one has complained. Of course, it might be because they got buried under requests for alcohol and offers for laundry services. I keep meaning to post them again, but that probably would be pushing. Confession at the 4077th is an irregular business at best. I can go months without a single person even asking me for advice. When someone finally does happen by, they always happen when I'm not ready.

Three hours ago, as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I heard a knock at my door. Now, I knew that sort of knock. It was the sound made by someone who had mustered his or her courage to come talk to the only ear in camp that has to be impartial and the only ear upon whose confidentiality they can rely.

Oh, God. I really can't send this to you, can I? I can't send this to anyone. I don't even know what I'm doing, Kathy. I just feel like the only way I won't fail so badly the next time I'm faced with such a challenge is if I can discuss where I went wrong this time. Maybe that someone has to be myself, and I can tuck this letter in a box under my bed until it makes sense to me.

I do sometimes wonder why I was assigned to a unit that has all of two Catholics. Don't get me wrong, I can perform an Ecumenical service general enough to appease all the faithful, or it would if any of those faithful ever bothered to show up. I've even performed a Jewish service or two in my time. But as unattended as my services are, the dying and the dead can and do benefit from the presence of a priest. In performing the Last Rites, I'm seeing to the souls of young men minutes away from meeting God. If I don't help them prepare, they could be lost. The thought of failing even one of them keeps me moving from body to body, and from operating table to operating table. The doctors, I fear, think it's a bit ghoulish. They don't understand that what I do is far less about death and far more about ensuring as best I can that those in my charge are granted eternal life. The responsibility is staggering, only dwarfed by the cost of failure.

But back to tonight, when I got to hear a confession that not only came from one of my living flock, but one of its paragons. I was in my bathrobe at the time, so all I could do was sling my stole around my shoulders and hope for the best.

"Come in," I said.

There was a long silence on the other side of the door, and then the handle turned. I was surprised to see BJ Hunnicutt, the retiring and friendly new member of our little family, duck into the tent. I don't know BJ all that well yet, Sis, but he's always struck me as a man who loves his family and lives a good life without any divine intercession on my part. There are enough troubled people in the camp that I guess I just never got around to talking to him.

Apparently my particular vestments put him off a little, because he almost left then and there. "Sorry, Father. I thought you'd be . . . but it's late. I should let you get to sleep." He forced a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Chances are good it'll be a long day tomorrow. Then again, chances are always good it'll be a long day. The joys of living in a war zone: there are lights in the morning, lights in the evening, and lights at night. Whether they come from the sun or the rockets' red glare is anyone's guess, am I right?"

When a man comes to me and starts rambling, Kathy, I really wish I had some sort of commanding presence. Back in Seminary, the priests all seemed so in touch with God. They all seemed to know exactly what to say at any given moment, no matter what the situation. Maybe I missed a step, or didn't take the right class.

God doesn't tell me what to say. When men like BJ beat around the bush, I don't know how to get them to open up. I just have to hope they do it on their own.

He looked at me, and I knew I'd missed a cue. I hadn't said something he'd been hoping I would.

I picked through what he'd said. "Um, no. No! This is a fine time, my son. Come in."

He did, and he closed the door behind him. When he turned around, he had two bottles of beer in his hands. He was smiling at me, but it was the sort of smile Mom used to give us right before she told us it was going to be powdered milk for the rest of the month. "Hey, Father," he said. "I found two bottles. Would you like one?"

"That depends," I said, trying for a little humor. "Do I get the contents too?"

BJ's laugh rang as hollow as my joke. "Good one, Father. You're a funny guy. Everyone talks about Hawkeye being the funny man around here, but you've got a good sneak attack on you." His chuckles died as he took a long drink.

"BJ . . ." I started to say, but was interrupted. Probably for the best, the way my conversational skills were shaping up.

"I tell you, when I get back to the States I'm going to go out and drink a can of Schlitz. Have you ever had it, or is that a San Francisco thing? I don't even want to drink it because it's good. It's just this average beer, like every other beer, but I can't get enough of it. It's my beer: first, last and only. You know what I mean? I can barely even remember the taste of it, but it's all I can think about." He took another drink, then stared at his bottle. I realized he was reading the label. "Have you ever heard of these beers we get here? I sure haven't."

"BJ—"

He began pacing the length of my tent, back and forth. "No, sir, there's nothing better than Schlitz and a good hamburger. Do you remember the last time you had a good grilled hamburger on a toasted bun? Peg would always . . . Peg would . . ." His voice started to sound strained. "A good burger and a can of Schlitz on the back porch, with Erin playing at our feet."

There was nothing I could do. There was no way I could stop him pacing a rut into my floor without begging or blocking, and the last thing that poor man needed was a fight. "BJ, please sit down," I whispered. I didn't even expect him to hear me.

BJ collapsed onto my cot like a puppet with its strings cut. He drank quietly for a while after that. He had yet to really look at me, and I felt, not for the first time, that I was incidental to this scene rather than a participant.

Then BJ patted the mattress next to him. I thought I might get lucky, and my presence alone would be what he needed. I sat down, and we both stared at their beer bottles again. It really was almost like a confessional. I could have looked at him, but then again I couldn't. It wasn't right to look in on that sort of pain.

"You're an admirable guy, Father," BJ said. "Honestly, I don't know how you do it."

He was opening up, thank Heaven. "What do you mean?"

"You're so above it all," he said, gesturing with his beer bottle. A little spilled to the floor, but he didn't notice. "Do you know that I've never seen you angry? Not once. Not even when Private Simmons kept cracking wise about Catholics whenever you were around. I would have decked him by the third day, but you didn't even react. That takes real talent. Real … temperance."

Is it a personal failing of mine that every compliment feels like a trap? "Well, thank you, BJ. I try hard to act as an example."

"And a mighty fine example you are, too. I don't know how you manage it. Don't you ever . . . doesn't it ever feel like God is a long way away from Korea?"

Now, that was a question I didn't want to answer. "I believe that He's everywhere—"

Then BJ looked me straight in the eye and I couldn't go on. I was taken aback by the pain I saw there. Something was very, very wrong. "Look, Father, I know I don't have any right to ask. I know I'm prying, but I'd love it if you could just . . . just be a person for a second." He laughed again, low and nervous. "Oh, God. That came out far more insulting than I intended it. Forget I said anything. I should just—"

I blurted out the first thing that came to mind that wasn't Scripture. "I remember the first time we were bombed." He stopped talking and just stared at me. Of course, once I had started 'being human' I had a hard time stopping. "The mortars fell throughout the camp. One destroyed the latrine. We were all in Colonel Blake's office. I remember one mortar landing outside and blowing out the windows. Colonel Blake . . . I heard him shout, and he fell. Radar fell with him. Major Burns was making these . . . frightened noises, and Major Houlihan was holding him. I just stood there. A shard of glass cut my cheek, but I couldn't feel it over the ringing in my ears. Another mortar fell and I was knocked down. One of the lenses in my glasses cracked. I could see Colonel Blake under the desk, very still, with Radar holding onto him like he wanted to protect him from the bombs. Hawkeye was leaning over me, trying to see if I was all right, but the next blast flattened him. We were all on the floor, with the bombs falling all around us, and I prayed harder than I ever had to make the bombs stop."

"Did they?"

I hung my head. This wasn't the sort of story to bring comfort to the downtrodden. It wasn't even a story that would comfort the uplifted. "They did. After two days. I'd stopped praying by then. It's hard to do when you've been drafted as a nurse and have your hands inside some poor young man's chest cavity."

It was my turn not to be able to look at him. It wasn't just the wrong story; it was the exact opposite of what I was meant to do in comforting and bringing hope. If I didn't have faith in a crisis, how could I expect anyone else to? Why did I think it was such a good idea to relive all those horrible moments when the reassurance of my faith was pulled out from under me? How was that supposed to help?

"What did you do after that?" BJ asked. "Once the bombs had stopped falling?"

"I prayed again. I read the Bible, and I tried to make sense of it all."

"Did you?"

"No."

"But you still believe," BJ said. "What happened?"

"BJ, just because we don't understand everything that happens in this world doesn't refute the existence of God, or of His love."

BJ didn't sound comforted. "He's got a funny way of showing it sometimes, doesn't He?"

"I … yes, I suppose He does."

BJ gripped his bottle, looked at it again, and then put it on my bedside table so quickly it nearly fell over. He caught it and righted it, and then leaned away, still looking at it. "All that temptation . . ." he whispered. "Has every nurse here respected that collar you've got, or has there ever been . . ."

"BJ!" I gasped. I don't mind telling you, Sis, it was the most awkward question I've been asked as a priest. I didn't know what to say. I knew I shouldn't be angry at him, but such a personal question so suddenly knocked me for a loop.

I don't think BJ even noticed my offense, or if he did, he was too caught up in his own confession to care. I tried to regain whatever composure a man in a stole and a bathrobe can possess when a confessor questions his celibacy. BJ was hurt. I needed to make allowances for that.

"They're so warm and kind," he whispered. "And sometimes they need something, and you're there, and you could help. And everyone in this war is so damn alone. Haven't you ever been tempted?"

Then I understood what he'd been trying to tell me. I'm considered quite the innocent amongst the people of the 4077th. People apologize every time they say something crass or unkind in my presence, even when I'm not part of the conversation. I don't think they realize that mine is a voluntary innocence. I've heard too many confessions just like BJ's not to know the gist.

But the specifics, particularly this good man's specifics, still tore at me. You know me. I'll never be able to toughen up like some of the other chaplains. I feel every failure and every fall from grace as though they are my own. In some ways they have to be. This is my flock, and when they fail I do too.

The words, whispered barely above breath, were terrible in their simplicity. "She needed me."

BJ's head bowed under the weight of his admission, and I wished he was Catholic. There's a script for this sort of thing with Catholics. There are rules, and they do help people reconcile themselves with their sins. But none of those things would bring BJ any sort of relief from the guilt he was feeling.

I had to come up with something to say that was all my own. "I . . . I'm sorry." My voice was small even to my ears.

"You never gave in to temptation," he said. He wasn't asking, Sis.

I didn't know what to say. No one has ever turned that particular question on me. The sort of temptation he was talking about … I just wouldn't do it. I couldn't. Not and feel that I was still true to my vows and to God. You can't have two marriages at once, and I was already bound. The thought of sullying that … I sometimes worry about the strength and endurance of my faith, but it's never been because I think it to be less than my own problems. Rather, I worry that I don't deserve the vows I've taken.

BJ must have seen some of my thoughts in my expression, because he softened. For a moment, he was affable again. "Of course you didn't," he said.

"I . . . no, I haven't."

"You know, there's this big part of me that's happy about that," he said. "It's incredible. In this hell, with all the pain and all the need around you, the promises you made—all those vows you took—they never leave your mind. They never seem too far away, or not enough."

"It's the other way around," I found myself admitting, my voice barely more than a whisper. "When I get afraid, I worry I'm not good enough for my vows."

He breathed out hard, like I'd punched him in the gut instead of admitting to my own fear. "Wow, Father. You sure know how to hit a whole factory full of nails on the head, don't you?" Then he was leaning forward, and his free hand caught my wrist tightly. My own beer, much fuller than his had been, slopped over the edge and splashed on the floor. "How do you keep from falling, Father?" he asked, his gaze searching my face again. "Tell me, because I really want to know."

I had an answer to his question, but it wasn't helpful. In fact, it was the worst answer I thought I could give.

The answer was that I simply didn't break my vows, that most people did respect the collar. The people around me create such a deep chasm of respect that I've never been faced with true tests. I can't help but wonder if, like BJ, I would give into temptation too: perhaps not his temptation; I found that easy enough to resist. But the subtle ones: oblivion, escapism, the temporary reassurance found at the bottom of a glass? It's hard to explain to someone who isn't in the middle of all this, but in war that which is present and convenient almost always trumps that which is loved but untouchable. People crave as concrete a goodness as the evil they see, and if they can't have goodness they turn to comfort where it's offered.

"The people around me," I said, "they've never let me fall." I thought of the one and only time I'd gotten drunk on communion wine, and the teasing I'd got for months afterward. The name 'Dago Red' still makes me cringe, but it was a good lesson. Ridicule isn't a kind way to keep someone from giving in, but for me it's been effective.

"Must be nice, having so many people care about supporting you."

I thought about the ridicule again. As awkward and annoying as it had been, I had, for a time, felt as though I was a part of the group. The teasing died away in the wake of newer and more interesting foibles from other, less meek recipients, and I had gone back to being the untouchable Father Mulcahy to everyone but occasionally Hawkeye, who has never been able to let a joke go.

"It's a double-edged blade," I said. I didn't even know I felt that way until it was out in the open. "Being so supported makes me something other, always on the outside of interactions. Have you ever heard anyone call me by name? Half the time, I have the feeling you all think 'Father' is my given name."

I looked down to see BJ's fingers twist around my wrist. "I'm sorry," he said.

I hadn't meant to make the conversation about me, and I knew I needed to do something, offer some sort of advice. I gave it my all. "Your freedom allowed you to stumble, BJ. But it also allows you to fix your mistakes, and to learn from those mistakes. It's the only thing you can do."

BJ shook his head, and I watched as his expression closed off to me. That was it. I'd done my best and failed. "What is your first name?" he asked.

"Francis." I hated not having the words that could help. I hated that somehow my attempt at comfort had ended with BJ trying to comfort me. The old suspicion that I was useless reared its head. "Francis John Patrick Mulcahy."

BJ squeezed my hand. "How about you get some sleep, Francis? Sorry to keep you up."

He stood, and I looked up at him, pulling my glasses from my face as emotion threatened to overwhelm me. "BJ, I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know how to make this right for you."

BJ's false smile was back as he hung his head and scratched the back of his neck. "I'm pretty sure there's only one person who can, and she's in San Francisco. Go to sleep, Father. You need to rest when the wicked amongst us can't."

And then he left. There are priests who would have known what to say to help a good man in a moral crisis. They would have memorized a script and delivered it with sincerity. I'm not one of them. All I have is the truth as I know it, and that isn't enough. What do I do, Kathy? I need to be better than this. If I am the ear of last resort, I can't fail or people will give in to all the worst this war has to offer. There are two bottles of off-brand beer here, and I don't know what to do.

No, I do know one thing. I'm going to have to burn this letter. I may have failed BJ as an advisor, but I refuse to fail him as a confessor. I don't think writing this down has cleared matters very much to me, but I don't dare leave these pages lying around until I do understand. So into the stove they go.

Thanks for not hearing me out, Sis.

Your brother,

Francis


	3. I Will Boast All the More Gladly

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: This chapter occurs right after "Movie Tonight".

oOo oOo 3: I Will Boast All the More Gladly of My Weaknesses oOo oOo

Dear Sis,

I really shouldn't make these confessions about confession a regular thing, even if they do get burned as soon as I write them. I'm going to need to ask Radar for more paper if I continue at the rate I've been going. I do pray about the confessions I hear, of course. And usually that's more than enough. God answers our prayers, but He does so in mysterious ways. Sometimes, I just want a letter.

I heard another Protestant confession tonight, Sis. It went better than my disastrous discussion with BJ, if only moderately so. A man came to me in need, and he didn't walk out after hearing what I had to say. Though that may have more to do with the fact that he's now passed out on my cot, rather than my skills as a priest.

It all started about midnight, after I had finished in the OR and gotten a shower. It had been a good night, Kathy. Colonel Potter ordered in a film, and though it was badly damaged, we managed to entertain ourselves. I found myself the butt of the 'Father Mulcahy Sound-Alike' competition, but it was all in good fun. We even sang in the operating room afterwards.

In those rare, jubilant moments, I try to capture the feeling in a sermon before it goes away. I was sitting at my desk in my tent, jotting down quotes and ideas when I heard a voice behind me. "She was beautiful tonight, wasn't she?"

I don't mind telling you, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn't heard the door open, let alone the quiet pad of feet, but as soon as I heard the voice I smelled the alcohol.

I turned to find Frank Burns standing there in the middle of the room. Major Burns arrived at the 4077th shortly after I did, so you would think I could tell you quite a bit about his personality and his troubles: what makes him a good man and what makes it hard for him to be that good man. But the truth is, I really can't. The best I can say is that I try very hard to love all God's children equally, but Major Burns insists on making things difficult.

The Major had no bottle with him, but that was probably because he'd already drunk it all. He looked around the tent with the vacant expression of the sleepless and soused. As far as I've been able to tell, Major Burns doesn't approve of Catholicism, and though he treated me with respect, I never thought he'd consider coming to me for guidance. But there he was, drunk and wobbly. I took one look at him and knew this was going to be a messy one.

"Major," I said. I stood up and went to him before he fell flat on his face. "Are you lost?"

"Hmm?" It took Burns several seconds to focus on my face, and when he did he stared at my nose. "Lost? Oh, you bet I'm lost. I'm so, so lost." He blinked and the despair on his face washed away. He looked at me again and smiled. "Fancy seeing you here, Father!"

I considered my options. I could walk him back to the Swamp, but he had come to my tent. Even if it wasn't his intent to talk to me, he was there and that had to mean something. Like I said about God and mysterious ways. So instead of guiding him back out, I led him to a chair and said, "Sit down, Major."

"Okay," Burns chirped, still silly and chipper. He sounded so unlike himself I had a hard time thinking of this man as Major Burns, great believer in rules and regulations. "You hold the chair still and I'll sit down." He burst out laughing.

I looked at the chair, but it seemed a long way down, and very small. I could manhandle Frank into it, but I couldn't guarantee how long he would stay. He looked like he would collapse in a puddle at the slightest breeze. The cot was a safer bet, so I walked him to it. Frank blinked at the cot, then at me, and then giggled and flopped backwards onto it.

"Whoops," he said, and laughed again.

"Major, did you want something?" I did try to keep any exasperation out of my tone. Being patient with people in camp is part and parcel to being their priest. And again, Frank did his best to make that difficult.

He managed to sprawl on my cot, which is no mean feat considering the small area he had to work with. He looked up at me, and I was put in mind of goldfish and ten-second memory spans. "Who, me?" he asked. "Sure, I want something. I want Donald Penobscot to fall off a cliff. I want Margaret to like me again, like she used to. She did used to like me, you know. That was nice. Not many people do."

"Now, Major, I'm sure that's not true," I said, even though I wasn't so sure. Major Burns has difficulties interacting with people that make me look socially accomplished.

He also has very blue eyes, and at that moment they were very wide and very earnest. "No, it is true. They think I don't know, but BJ and Hawkeye don't like me much at all. Colonel Potter never wants to leave me in charge, and now even Margaret hates me."

When Major Burns first came in, I admit to thinking uncharitably. I believed I would have to dig very deep in my soul to sympathize with whatever plight Burns had found himself in, but in that moment it was easy to pity Frank Burns.

We are human and fallible, and we misjudge others far more than we hope. I felt I had badly misjudged Frank; that maybe the whole world had misjudged him. He was irritating, but there was something about him that indicated his faults were not entirely his choice.

I was being completely honest with him when I said, "I like you."

Frank's expression crumpled, which was not the effect I was hoping for. He sounded less like a grown man and more like a disappointed child when he said, "Oh, you don't count. You have to like everyone. But she liked me, and she doesn't like many people. No sir. And now she doesn't like me any more. She got her fiancée and that was that. Not that we were together in that sort of sense, of course! I know the value of family values, and they are very valuable. But we were friends! And now we're not. No one likes Frank."

Drunken confessions are always the most difficult kind, but after the disaster with BJ I was particularly determined. I placed a hand over Frank's. I waited until he looked at me again, and then waited a bit longer to be certain he recognized me and remembered where he was. "I like you, Frank. God likes you."

"Oh, He has to like everyone too!" Frank whined.

I was at the end of my rope, Sis. Out of desperation, I resorted to a direct question. "Major, what would make you feel better?"

"I'd feel better if Margaret said she was sorry and that she'd never do it again," Frank said.

That was less helpful than it could have been. "Is there something I could do that would make you feel better?"

Frank looked at me in confusion. "What do you mean? This is a trick, isn't it?"

"I really do want to help you, Major. I just . . . I don't know how to do that."

Frank looked at me with confusion that began to shade toward fear. It struck me that this might not be a question often put to Frank Burns. Everyone here tells him what to do, no matter their rank. Back when Frank and Major Houlihan were still 'friends' she would often do his talking for him. Frank talks about patriotism and duty, but I have to wonder if that is because he couldn't think of anything else remotely appropriate to say.

Frank became more and more agitated while I fumbled for words. By the time I opened my mouth, he stumbled to his feet and backed away, swaying and nearly falling into my desk. "You're just trying to trip me up! I know what you're doing. You get me to tell you what I want and then you laugh at me! Well, I won't do it, bucko. I'm not going to be your dupe."

I got to my feet, ready to catch him. I offered a quick prayer that Frank didn't take a swing at me. I didn't think he was in any condition to land a blow, but he could easily knock into a support beam and collapse part of the tent. Actually, given what I've seen of Frank, that was a strong possibility. Before he could flail the tent down around our ears, I caught his hands.

"How can I help you?" I asked again, and tried to match Frank's loud panic with quiet calm. I don't think I succeeded, but I did try.

"I . . . I want . . ."

"Yes?"

"I don't know what I want." And quite suddenly Frank was in drunken tears. I managed to let go of his hands and wrap an arm around him as he collapsed, but his elbow caught me in the gut and we both fell onto the cot this time. Frank bounced a little, and then curled up in a miserable ball. I sat there and gasped until I had regained my breath.

When I managed to think about something other than breathing, I found Frank still curled up next to me. Seeing him there, I wondered if Frank Burns wasn't the embodiment of the whole war: ineffective, pitiful, and so blind he couldn't find his own way home. There was no decision he wouldn't balk at, no buck he wouldn't pass, and not nearly the resources a man like him would need in a place like this to do half of what was expected of him. The army deposits so many men in Korea who have no capacity for handling their experiences. I've seen them come through, broken and disbelieving in post op. I try to help, but by the time I reach most of them they have thousand-yard stares, and nothing I say touches them.

If the world had been kind at all, Frank Burns would have a private practice and a home where nothing ever happened and nothing beyond his ability was ever expected of him. I have a hard time believing he would be happy there, or anywhere really, but he would be safe. Maybe he would even be content.

Frank's sobs trailed off. "You aren't going to tell Pierce and Hunnicutt I cried, are you? This is like confession. You can't tell anyone."

"I won't tell," I said.

Frank sniffled against the pillow.

Oh, Kathy, I want to believe that I was sent to Korea to mend people, but I can't fix the entire war, and I couldn't fix Frank for the same reasons. I know that I failed him too, even if my failure was less glaring than it was with BJ.

The only thing I could offer was a safe place to sleep without fear of practical jokes. "Go to sleep, Major," I said. "Know that you're being watched over."

"Really? That would be swell . . ." Frank's silly smile was back. He snuggled against my pillow. "And maybe this is all a dream, and tomorrow things will be all right again."

He was snoring in seconds. I climbed off the cot and sat down at my desk. After taking a moment to collect myself, I looked at my sermon. The jubilation of the night was gone. Maybe I'll reuse the one about Jonah. That always gets good responses. After I've burned this letter, of course.

Your Brother,

Francis


	4. One Day is as a Thousand Years

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: Takes place after "Mail Call Three".

oOo oOo 4: One Day is as a Thousand Years oOo oOo

Dear Sis (and the stove),

Some of my strangest memories of Korea are of those late night visits from someone so inebriated they thought it would be a good idea to tell me all about their debauchery. There is no deterring someone in that state, so it's really best just to sit them down and hang on for the ride. The confessions can range from the embarrassing to the tragic to the hysterical. I once spent three hours trying to convince Sergeant Rizzo that it wasn't a good idea to display his displeasure with his new duty assignment by performing it naked. Hand in hand with drunken confessions are my attempts to convince drunken people not to do drunken things.

Even if it's just drunks I help, I do love to feel that I've made a difference, and last night was a perfect example of a moment in which, thanks to God and cheap booze, I think I might have done just that.

Have I told you about Corporal Klinger? He's one of the more interesting characters in camp. He's from what I must imagine is a rough part of Toledo, and acts like the sort of man who spent his young life taking care of himself. He's also taken a violent dislike to this war and his drafting into it, which he expresses through women's clothing. There is something rather surreal about seeing a swarthy man in a gingham dress, white pumps, and two days of stubble patrolling the camp with a rifle.

The corporal has spent the whole war trying unsuccessfully to get out of Korea through any means necessary. The women's clothing is the most obvious con he's got running, but if there's been a scheme to get out of service, chances are good Klinger's tried it.

He's also one of the few regulars at my services, which I admit makes me offer him a certain preferential treatment. For the longest time I wasn't really certain if he was Catholic or if he just liked wearing white gloves, but around here you take what faithful you can get.

He almost went AWOL today, Sis. He found out in a letter this morning that his wife had left him, and he was desperate to get back to Toledo to see her and attempt to salvage their marriage. I knew what he wanted to do, and while I admired his intentions I didn't think the Army would be nearly as understanding. So I stepped in and tried to stop him. It even seemed to me that Klinger listened to my advice. I should have known better, shouldn't I? Between my track record and his persistent attempts to leave, I really should have known that as soon as I wasn't looking he'd steal a jeep and make for the nearest airport. I just sometimes want to believe that when someone allows me to think I helped them through a difficult moral conundrum, I actually did.

He ended up coming back, through no doing of mine. He'd come to the realization that the jail sentence he would incur through desertion wasn't worth confronting his wife, and although I'd already told him that very thing, he did so altogether on his own. Potter took him to the officer's club and got him properly drunk, and the rest of the senior staff followed along. I went, of course, but I couldn't bring myself to drink much.

After a time, Klinger was half-passed out on the floor and the rest of them weren't much better off. I decided it might be best to escort him back to his tent. Hawkeye and BJ could make their way back to the Swamp, and perhaps even help Charles along the way. Potter was holding his whiskey with enough grace that he could make it back to his tent, if not in a straight line, and Margaret seemed almost unaffected by the whole hand of fingers of gin she'd drunk.

BJ helped me pick Klinger up off the floor, and after narrowly avoiding total collapse when BJ overbalanced, I waved him off to the slightly less wobbly support of Hawkeye. Hawkeye tossed me a sloppy salute, and Klinger and I limped out of the club and into the dark. It took me several seconds to remember how to see outdoors, and even then I couldn't do it very well. I hate to admit it, Kathy, but I think your older brother might have had one too many.

"That you, Father?" Klinger asked me.

"It's me."

"I still have your twenty dollars, you know. It's in my pocket." He slapped at the sides of his blue dress, then dug into the top. "Oh," he said, "other pocket. Easier to run away in fatigues. MPs see a floral pattern coming a mile away." He nodded, which had the side effect of running his head into my shoulder.

I patted his head, and tried to do so in a way that kept him from knocking it against my shoulder until it bruised. I said, "Give it to me tomorrow. When you have pants."

"Not going to have pants," Klinger said. "It's going to be an evening gown day. The blue chiffon with a mink stole. Something classy."

"I always thought that looked nice on you."

"Really?"

"Would I lie?"

For a moment, I worried Klinger might cry. "I didn't mean to lie to you, Father. I just needed to run so bad, and I knew I could—that you would—ah, why do you trust a word I say? You know what I'm like, so why'd you let me con you?"

That was the question, wasn't it, Sis? Why did I believe I had helped him, when all the evidence of both our pasts said otherwise? "I choose to believe the best of people, Corporal," I said, although I didn't know if I was referring to him or me. In my preoccupation, I nearly ran into a light pole, and then stood blinking at it for a few seconds before moving on. "To err is human, after all."

"So divine forgiveness is your schtick, huh?"

"Divine forgiveness is God's schtick. I just try for the human sort."

"I really am sorry, you know."

"I know." And I did. And it wasn't helping all that much.

Klinger tugged my sleeve and we stopped. "Pretty sure this is my stop," he said. "Want to come in? I could grab that twenty for you." He sounded so hopeful, Kathy. I was still angry with him—or myself, I couldn't decide which—but I couldn't turn him down. Hope is too precious to squander.

"Of course. That's very kind of you."

"It's not, but thanks."

I followed him in, melancholy but obliging. Klinger's cot was exactly like mine, but for a pink dressing gown thrown across it and a fur coat at the foot to provide a bit more warmth. Klinger bent over to rummage through a pile of dirty dresses and housecoats. "Hey, Father, I know I didn't do so hot on the last confession, but does that keep me out of the running for making another?"

"When it comes to confession, we priests value quality over quantity." And if we can't get either, we'll settle for a not-so-white lie, I almost added, but knew that would make both of us feel guilty. If he was feeling genuine contrition, it was my obligation to hear him out. More than that, Klinger is a good man. He just occasionally forgets that a failing he shares with the entire human race. "Of course I'll hear your confession," I said.

"You're a swell guy, Father. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." He straightened up with a crumpled twenty-dollar bill in his hand. "A twenty for the orphans' fund, and a confession straight from me."

I took it from him, and the world swayed a bit. It was true I hadn't had much to drink compared to the others, but I'd had far less to eat, and the alcohol on top of the fatigue hit me hard enough I had to sit down. The cot was right there, and the pink robe was surprisingly soft. Klinger laid a steadying hand on my shoulder and I looked up at him. "Klinger, I have to warn you that I'm not at my best right now. I'm not certain I can bring my confessional A-game with this blood-alcohol level."

"It's all right. My confession skills aren't up to much, either."

"Go on, then."

"Right, yeah." Now that we'd come down to it, Klinger didn't seem so eager to confess. He picked at the fabric of his dress, then pulled his hat off and put it on a wig head. "How's this thing start again? Oh, right. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Or is it 'because' I have sinned?"

That proved he was either drunker than I thought he was, or not nearly as Catholic as I thought he could be. "'For' is most commonly used, although since it's derived from the Latin anyway, I don't suppose … but that's not important. Tell me what's wrong." I winced. "Other than the obvious, of course. Unless your confession is the obvious, in which case I think—I think you really should just tell me what's troubling you before I keep talking."

He started to pace, his speech slurred and his steps not quite certain. I worried he'd fall straight into his clothing rack and accidentally get impaled on a hanger. "I've done some things a guy shouldn't be proud of today, sure. And I've done some things I'm not proud of, and I am sorry. You gotta believe me on that one."

"Max, if that's your confession, you really didn't have to—"

"It's not." Well, that shut me up. "I just wanted to say it before we got any further."

"Oh … um … whatever it is you have to say, I'm listening," I said.

"Okay." He rocked on the balls of his feet. He wouldn't look at me, or at anything for too long. Finally, when I was beginning to think he might be having some sort of fit, he said, "When I heard Laverne wanted a divorce, I was really broken up about it. I couldn't think of a life without her, but that's started to settle down. Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna miss her like crazy, but I'm gonna miss something else more."

Well, that answered the question as to whether Klinger was Catholic or not. My immediate reaction, Kathy, was of course to argue that he couldn't possibly allow a divorce, but life isn't that simple, is it? Going back and attempting a reconciliation was out of the question, what with the war and all, but my training insisted I say something.

"Oh, Father, you've got that 'doom' look on your face," Klinger said. "Oh! It's the divorce thing, isn't it? Man, I'm such an idiot! I shouldn't have dragged you into this. What am I thinking?"

"You're not Catholic, are you?" I asked.

He shrugged, a sheepish smile on his face. "You caught me. But I paid four bucks for those gloves. When else can I wear them and not look tacky?"

I pressed a hand to my face and tried to work through what to do. Klinger wasn't Catholic, which meant that divorce was probably not the ethical minefield for him it was for me. Of course I understand why people go through with divorces. Some marriages, as perfect as they ought to be, not only fall short, but never took off to begin with. If Mom could have—but that's not the point. Marriage is not only a legal contract. It's sacred.

But people are people, and some people get divorces. And sometimes—I'm crossing myself writing this, don't worry—it's maybe for the best.

"I don't know what to say," I said, which I suppose was something.

"If it helps, my confession isn't about divorce."

"That actually does help, yes."

"Except for the first part, which is about divorce."

"Oh." I braced myself and said, "Go on."

"Me and Laverne, we'd been inseparable even before we got married. I got this feeling once I was drafted: the sort of feeling a guy only gets once or twice in his life. And this feeling told me that she might have been my wife, but she was also the girl I was supposed to come home to. And then she left me. She and the home, they're both gone."

"I'm—"

"I don't got anything to go back for," he said. "How long's it going to take me before I stop wanting to escape? That's why I had to run. If I didn't, I was worried I'd stop wanting to."

"I hardly think that's likely."

"I'm not so sure. I got a family here, now. I got friends and a job. Can I say any of those things about Toledo? People are dying around us every day, and all I can think right now is how good I got it here. I think I might be cracking up for real! I've even considered putting on a real uniform and reenlisting!"

"Now, my son," I said. The alcohol made it surprisingly easy to feel confident. I can see why so many people rely on it. "You've been dealt a terrible blow, but this too you can overcome. Until that happens, though, you must stick to your guns, or in this case your hose."

"We're in Korea, Father. Maybe I just gotta accept it."

"All right," I said, scrambling for a way to deter him before he did himself any further damage today. "Maybe you should volunteer for battalion aid, just to accept the full effect."

"What do you think I am, nuts? Go up to the front and get shelled every day? See all those kids blown to bits? You've lost your holy marbles, Father!" Then he smiled, and it seemed genuine. "Oh, you're good. Okay, I still hate it here, but what am I supposed to do when I get back there? I tell you, losing the reason to run away sure makes the finishing line look less appealing."

"You're a very skilled man. Surely there's something you could do when you get back."

"Hey, I got an idea!" Klinger turned around too quickly and fell to his knees in front of me. He seemed surprised by the change in elevation, swayed, and ended up resting both his arms on my legs and looking up at me. "I could join the priesthood! Guaranteed job when I get back home, and you get your room and board covered, right?"

"Well, yes."

"It's perfect, don't you see? Father Klinger: it's got a good ring to it."

I blinked down at him, scarcely believing what I was hearing. I know that non-Catholics don't understand a lot of things we take for granted, but to so casually propose a sacred vocation! To offer it up as a job of convenience! I had to fight back the immediate response, which would have been loud and angry, and in my state probably not coherent. He didn't know. He didn't understand what it took to be a priest.

And then one of those thoughts that come perhaps once a year popped into my head. I will never have Hawkeye's deft comedic touch, but every now and again I rise to the occasion. "Do you know, Max, I believe you could be a decent priest." I frowned as I pretended to think about it. "Of course, it's something of a long process. We'll have to start with conversion, of course. You attend Mass regularly, but intensive education about the Church and our perspectives on Christian teachings would be very important for your conversion. I'd be willing to sponsor you during catechism, though it'll be difficult as there aren't many Catholics around to initiate you into any sort of Church setting. Still, I'm certain your friends here would help you by going to Mass every Sunday and attending regular classes. Maybe you should talk to them about conversion too. I'm sure Major Winchester would be very receptive. Then, of course there's the Period of Purification during Lent, which is even more stringent for those converting. But I don't want to bog you down with details. I can do that during our weekly meetings. I'm sure the Command Chaplain will send me literature if I request it, and the entire process of conversion should only take about six months if you're baptized in another Christian faith. If not, I'm afraid we're looking at two years. And then we can start looking at ways to prepare you for Seminary, and a life of poverty, humility, and celibacy. It should be no problem for an aspiring priest."

Klinger had grown paler and paler as I spoke, and by the end he was shifting away and looking longingly at the tent door. "Maybe I should reconsider, huh?" he asked.

"Maybe you should," I said. I think I managed to keep most of the acid out of my tone.

"Sorry if I put my foot in my mouth, Father. I do that sometimes. Don't know if you've noticed."

He did seem genuinely contrite. "It's all right. I just … I take my vocation very seriously," I said. "I know it doesn't make sense to most of you, but this is my life."

"Father, you gotta believe me, I really didn't mean any offense."

"I know you didn't. You never do. It's one of your better qualities: deliberate cruelty isn't in you."

"Wow," he said. "You got the guilt, the forgiveness and then a compliment? You got the one-two punch followed by a knockout, there." Before I could protest, he said, "And I deserved one right in the puss for being such a pain to everyone today. Especially you. It came across really badly, but everything you did for me? The talk by the jeeps, and letting me off the hook for lying to you, and not flattening me for everything I've said? I'm not just sorry for being such a jerk, I'm grateful you keep trying."

"I didn't even think you were listening to me at the jeep," I said.

"I did. The fact that I still ran away … look, you made me stop and think about it. I don't think anyone else could have gotten that much out of me, the way I was feeling."

"If you were so set on running, despite knowing the consequences, why did you come back?"

"Like I said at the Officer's Club, Father: I may not have a family in Toledo no more, but I sure got one here." He smiled suddenly, a strange, sort of nervous smile I'd only seen on him once or twice in our acquaintance. "You want to know something funny?" he asked. "Something I've never told anyone else here?"

"All right," I said.

"I was a small-time operator in Toledo. Sure, I rubbed elbows with the mob and I knew half a dozen crooked politicians, but just me? All my scams were small potatoes. It took me getting drafted to make me a real con artist."

"I'm not sure I should congratulate you about that."

"Why not? I'm only using my schemes for the good of this outfit or for getting out of this outfit. Even you've got to admit that sometimes a little grift gets a lot done."

I thought of the children at Sister Theresa's orphanage. They have so little, Kathy, and keeping them fed and clothed is more than Sister Theresa can do on her own. I've taken, with the help of the doctors and nurses here, to using our extra money and supplies to get food and basic necessities via the local Black Market. It may seem wrong to purchase questionable goods from shady characters, but that sort of consideration doesn't seem to hold much water when you're faced with hungry, cold children. We do what we have to, Sis.

"I do understand, my son," I said. "And for what it's worth, I think it's going to take a lot more than this to quash your desire for freedom."

"Father, you're okay. And if the world is spinning as much for you as it is for me, I won't even ask you to get up. You're welcome to my cot as a gesture of thanks."

I thought I was all right to get back to my tent, but I couldn't resist asking, "And where would you sleep?"

"Ah, I've got enough dresses on my mending pile; I could make a nest."

"Thank you, my son. But I think the world is holding still enough that I believe I can get back to my tent."

I got up slowly, and the world only spun a little. Once I was certain I could walk without making a complete fool of myself I started to leave. I was nearly out the door when I heard Klinger say behind me, "Hey, Father. I meant what I said. I'm grateful."

I had an idea. I turned back to him. "Tell you what, Corporal. Sister Theresa's could really use some new Bibles. Last winter, half of them got burned for fuel, half of the rest were used for writing practice, and at least one of the others was eaten by a goat. You can show your thanks by using your abilities for the good of others."

"You give me a number, and I'll get you your Bibles. With any luck, I'll have them by next Sunday. Oh, speaking of, I can't wait to show off the new dress I got from the Tokyo PX. Dusky rose, conservative cut. Goes great with my gloves."

"I look forward to seeing it," I said.

I made my way back to my own tent, and this morning I woke to find that I not only avoided a hangover, but that Corporal Klinger was starting to seem himself again. I don't know if he'll get those Bibles or not, but even if he doesn't, it's encouraging to see a man remember that he was given talents for a reason. I believe we all have a purpose in this life, Kathy, and if Corporal Klinger's is to be a cross-dressing, Lebanese Robin Hood conning the rich to give to the poor, I'll be the first to accept a level of ethical grayscale and rejoice for the children who will have food and clothing thanks to Klinger's efforts.

Love,

Francis


	5. There is No Flaw in You

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: Takes place during 'War of Nerves,' and includes a transcription of one scene.

oOo oOo 5: There is No Flaw in You oOo oOo

Dear Sis,

I think, considering all my letters, that I've given you—well, the stove—the impression that I only talk to the senior staff, or maybe that I only care about them. This isn't true at all. I really do care about everyone who passes through our camp. It's just easier to advise people I don't spend every day with. It's easier to be seen as a spiritual leader and, well, someone who knows what he's talking about by young men who don't see me playing poker decently and playing the piano badly. I find it extraordinarily difficult to be a priest and a person, so counseling people who don't think I'm a person comes somewhat naturally to me.

But there are some people outside of our unit who see right through to the person, no matter what I do. That's the problem with trying to help a psychiatrist.

Sidney Freedman stops by the 4077th every now and then, usually when we have a case we'd like him to look at. I've always admired his ability to project such a calm, knowledgeable exterior. I suppose I view him as my opposite number: a sort of secular priest, there to put minds back together while I work on souls.

This time he came in thanks to his own injury. Apparently he was treating a young man up at the front, and he got caught in the crossfire along with his patient. His patient's hysterical paralysis was cured, but he blames Sidney for the additional wound he incurred while at the front. I don't know the whole story, but somehow poor Sidney went from the butt of that young man's misplaced fury to playing psychiatrist for the entire camp.

The longer he stayed, Sis, the more I thought I should go to him for his own sake. He was so busy treating everyone in the camp that no one was seeing to him, and he was the patient. So I got up my gumption and went to see him in the VIP tent.

I wanted to offer him assistance instead of another burden, but I couldn't help feeling, when I knocked at his door, that I would fail in the attempt. There are so few people over here who do what I do, Kathy, and Sidney is one of the closest. The temptation to talk to him about my own concerns was so strong I could see why everyone else had given in.

I nearly turned and left, rather than risk doing more harm than good, but he called out, "Come in!"

I opened the door and took off my hat. Some respect was in order, you know.

Sidney stood up and said, "Oh, hi, Father. I wasn't expecting to see you here."

I tried to think of something witty to say, or at least a segue to asking him how he was that didn't feel stilted and terrible. Sidney took pity on my floundering attempts to speak, and invited me to sit. Once in a chair, I looked up at him to maybe draw on a little of his own tranquility, and if not to get my bearings about his own state. Sis, he looked beat. His eyes were tired, the lines on his face were deeper than I remembered, and the white bandage at his forehead was a reminder of what could have happened to him if a Korean bullet had been aimed two inches to the right. There but for the grace of God went our sanity.

"I've come about a friend," I said.

Sidney slipped so easily into the role of the confessor—I mean, psychiatrist. "I see," he said. "What's his problem?" He looked so neutral, so knowing. I'll be lucky if I ever manage to look like that. Mostly, I think I tend to look scared and desperate.

"Things aren't going so well for him, and he's feeling a little low," I said.

He smiled and asked, "Who's your friend, Father?"

Now, I'd had enough 'friend' confessions to know what he meant. He thought I was there to talk about myself. "You," I said.

It made him laugh. The turnaround, and all that.

I couldn't muster the same good humor. I really was worried. I'd never seen him so exhausted, even when he'd taken a break at the 4077th to regain himself after the suicide of a patient. It could have been the injury, but it had been minor, and Sidney was a hardy man. Which left me convinced that it was his newest patient. The young man who had recently been shipped off to a hospital in Tokyo. I'd heard about the confrontation from several different sources, Kathy, and it sounded ugly. The young man refused Sidney any sort of forgiveness, blamed him for everything. If Sidney was anything like me, questions about the attack, and Sidney's own treatment plan, would be crowding one another out of his head, leaving no room for anything other than doubt. Of course, I've never cured that particular problem for myself, so offering advice felt like a losing proposition, but it was one that I owed him regardless. He deserved to be reminded of the good he's done so many young men.

I said, "I wonder if a good antidote would be to think about all the successes you've had. I would think you've had a few, no?"

His smile faded. He faded, Kathy, like a punctured balloon leaking out all its air. He's so good with the façade of cheer and professionalism it was like looking at a new man to see him momentarily without it. "Sure," he said. I was taken aback by the bitterness creeping into his tone. "I've sent dozens of kids back to the front and they're fine now."

"It hurts to think you might lose even one, doesn't it?" I asked. I knew. We both knew.

He looked at me then, and maybe my moment of mutual understanding really was mutual. He said, "See, when Pierce or Hunnicutt lose one, he's out of his misery. But when I lose one, I've lost a mind."

"When I lose one, I've lost a soul." And then, of course, I remembered that he wasn't a priest, and I wasn't a psychiatrist. And he might well view my job as some perversion of his profession—making gestures at saving people's souls when all we really do is make them feel poorly for not believing in our particular god when darkness closes around them. I know he's Jewish, and I try to be respectful of all religions, but other chaplains I've met have been less … open about such things. I've heard the comments, Sis, about the Rabbis and the occasional Imam who's been drafted. They say the same things about us Catholics. I wanted to say I wasn't like that—I didn't care what he believed so long as he found it to be right in his heart. But it would sound hollow, I thought, so I looked at my hands and said, "Well, I guess it's all in how you look at it."

I glanced up at him, and I really couldn't tell you what he was thinking. Sidney has always been particularly unreadable to me. Thankfully any more fumbling attempts at advising him were interrupted by a cheer from outside.

The bonfire was beginning. I guess I should have told you that some members of the camp were supposed to burn some lice-infested Chinese uniforms last night, and took it upon themselves to heap the pyre with old crates, ladders, and other flammable objects until a massive pile of wood had been constructed in the middle of camp. The Colonel—and I'm guessing Sidney—thought it would be good stress relief to allow everyone a little constrained arson, and I have to say I agreed. I never would have thought of something so destructive as being helpful in a war, but people's spirits seemed to lift the higher the stack was piled.

"Sounds like they're having a good time," Sidney said.

I stood up to go to the door. "And they're following your prescription. You've certainly done an admirable job here." I opened the door. The pile was so tall people were climbing on it to fit in the last few pieces. "Why don't you come on out and take a little of your own medicine?"

"You know, this wasn't my idea, it was theirs. They have an uncanny knack for healthcare, not to mention antic lunacy."

We joined the others as Klinger threw on the army cookbook. I saw a lawn chair get thrown in, and Radar's trumpet. Klinger lit the fire, and the whole thing caught light just in time for Colonel Potter himself to bring out his desk and toss it on. I was laughing so hard, Kathy, I almost didn't notice when Sidney shucked his jacket and tossed it on. I did see him drop his pants and burn them, but that felt in keeping with the spirit of the event. It was a sort of cleansing, if you will: burning the symbol of his job in this army. I hoped it did him some good, and that he didn't singe any of his hair once he was in his t-shirt and shorts.

We were all laughing until we stopped, and suddenly the burning mess seemed to take on serious overtones. Colonel Potter started singing "Till the Boys Come Home", and we all joined in, watching our work and our misery go up.

We watched until the stack had been reduced to ash and some twisted pieces of metal that might once have been bed-frames. The crowd drifted away one by one, until Sidney stood watching the last embers go out, and I stood watching Sidney.

He turned to look at me. "You didn't have to stay, you know."

I shrugged. He knew why I'd stayed, I was certain, better than I knew myself.

His voice was soft, and far away when he said, "You know, with the fire out …"

"Yes?" I asked.

"It's really cold out here."

I laughed and we returned to his tent. It smelled like smoke. "Care to step inside, Father?" he offered.

I took him up on it. "You do have another uniform here, right?" I asked. "I'd offer you mine, but it would be hard to explain your ordination to your colleagues."

"I have a spare. Don't worry, I'm not going to horn in on your act."

"You'd be good at it, you know."

Sidney turned to me then. "Father, I've got a confession to make. Think you can fit a Jew into that tight schedule of yours?"

I smiled at him. "Ech efshar la'azor lach, my son?"

Sidney stared at me for a few moments, and I will confess to a bit of pride on my part. Then he threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, Father, you are priceless. Where did you pick up Hebrew?"

"A very friendly Rabbi at the last chaplain's conference in Tokyo, as a matter of fact. He traded me some basic Hebrew for some basic Latin."

"And a good time was had by all." He clapped me on the shoulder. "You're good, Father."

"Good?"

"Well, you would have been perfect if you hadn't just called me a woman."

"What?"

"Gender-specific pronouns, Father. They'll trip you up every time."

"Oh, dear. You're going to have to teach me the male alternative. I can't even think how many unsuspecting young men I've accidentally called women. Thank God none of them knew Hebrew. Or maybe they were just too polite to correct me. Oh, my."

"No harm done, and I'm more than willing to lend you whatever rusty phrases I can drag up from the old Hebrew School days. But in answer to your question, you can help me by listening to what I have to say."

"Oh, um, yes." I sat up straighter and tried to emulate his calm serenity. And then I fidgeted and ruined the effect. "For lack of non-feminine Hebrew: how can I help you, my son?"

"I'm worried about a friend of mine."

I knew where this was going, but he wanted me to listen, and he had already listened to me. "Oh?"

"You see, he took these vows of humility, but I think he got them confused with a crushing lack of self-esteem."

I gripped my hands together and realized I had instinctively gone into a posture of prayer. "Sidney," I said.

"Come on, hear me out. He's got one of the hardest jobs in camp. He has to look out for the parts of people they forget about. It's easy to notice when you get your leg blown off, but he has to mend the invisible damage, and the rulebook he was initially working out of doesn't cover half of what he has to do. So he picks up Hebrew, and he does Protestant services, and he still doesn't think he's done enough."

I really couldn't look at him, Kathy. I could barely listen.

"So he became one of the most gifted secular counselors it's ever been my privilege to see. He's helped hundreds of young men out of the worst despair a person could be expected to endure, but all he remembers are the failures."

"I'm not allowed to fail," I whispered before I could stop myself. "Not when the stakes are so high."

He placed his hand over my hands, still held tight. I looked up at him, and he held my gaze with little effort. "We all fail, Francis. Every single one of us. God knows I have."

"And what do you do when you fail?"

"I just keep putting one foot in front of the other until I'm sure of the steps again."

His other hand touched the side of my head, and it felt like forgiveness. I couldn't understand how this confession had gotten itself so turned around, but in the end I needed it, I think. Maybe he needed it as well. Helping me seemed to lift something from him that had begun to come loose during the fire, and what I had thought would be a burden was apparently what he needed to hear. So a Catholic priest received benediction from a Jewish psychiatrist, and I hope they might both be better for it.

Putting one foot in front of the other,

Francis


	6. A Dim Reflection in a Mirror

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: Takes place during "Peace on Us".

oOo oOo 6: A Dim Reflection in a Mirror oOo oOo

Dear Sis,

Last night saw my scheduled hours for confession this week, so naturally I assumed I would be left alone to get some work done the way it usually happens. No one ever feels the need to see me until I'm busy doing something else. Why should last night have been any different? Of course, the fact that I'm writing this letter and have already heated the stove should tell you how wrong I got that prediction.

Let me start at the beginning. I had finished the material for the next two Sundays, and was about to choose scripture to go with my sermons when I heard a knock at the door. It seemed rational to call out, "The mess tent is two over!"

Instead of the usual muffled thanks and departing footsteps, I heard nothing. I started to wonder if someone had knocked on Colonel Potter's door and I just thought it was mine.

Then the knock came again. As soon as I was over the shock, I got up and hurried to the door. "Come in," I said through it.

The door still didn't open, and I began to suspect it was a prank. I sighed and opened the door, ready to find Hawkeye covered in toilet paper shambling down the road groaning. It's happened before. But instead of the live-action reenactment of 'The Mummy', Margaret Houlihan was standing there, looking as surprised to see me as I was to see her. Which was strange, considering that she was the one who knocked. At least I assumed she knocked. I took one more look for Hawkeye, or possibly for Boris Karloff.

There was no one around but her. "Major?" I asked. "Did you knock?"

She seemed to be searching for an answer. Major Houlihan has never, in my experience, lacked confidence. To see her so tongue-tied didn't bode well for whatever it was she wanted to talk to me about. I thank God every day for a high tolerance for fatigue.

I tried again. "Do you want to come in?"

"I . . . yes. Can I? I know this is when you're taking confession, and I'm not Catholic. I don't want to take up your time if you're busy with official duties."

She clearly didn't know much about my confession schedule. "Not at all, Major. Come in." I turned and made my way inside. I heard the door close behind me, so either the Major decided to slip out while I wasn't looking, or I was in business. Considering my last few confessions with the senior staff, I thought I was doing pretty well. I had pants and a shirt and everything.

When I turned around, Major Houlihan was still there. She was pacing the length of my tent, looking at everything. I was willing to bet she noticed every detail. She really is an excellent nurse, Sis. One of the best.

She stopped and stared at my boxing gloves. She seemed genuinely fascinated by them, lifting them up and looking at them from every angle. I tried to understand what she saw there, but then I've never been good at guessing what people are thinking. I tend to rely on them just telling me.

"Do you box?" she asked. She sounded surprised. I suppose I don't look like anyone's idea of a boxer. I remember how Mom laughed when she heard I was taking it up. She thought you should have gone out for boxing, and I could take your dance classes.

"Featherweight champion a long time ago," I said, and then hoped that didn't quite count as a prideful statement. I didn't mean it to be, even if the memory still fills me with a quiet glow. I know we're supposed to lay all our vanities aside in our vocations, Kathy, but it isn't often I get to be the best at anything. I suppose I'll just have to pray harder tonight. Maybe take a few extra shifts in post-op to put myself back on the right humble track.

"Do you still box?" she asked.

"No." Of course, that wasn't quite true, so I added, "Before I came here I taught the boys at the local CYO."

"You had time?" she asked. Her laugh was nervous and harsh in the stillness. The Major is a study in contradictions. I have it on good authority from several independent sources that she's an attractive woman, but she has all the delicate femininity of a tank squadron. And roughly the same subtlety. From what little I know about her younger years, I imagine that her father had a daughter, was confused for a while, and then resolutely raised a son anyway. Having said that, she doesn't seem poorly off for it, unless one counts being deployed to Korea as 'poorly off'. On some days—the days when a Divine Plan seems more like some grand practical joke on the part of the Almighty, and all I can think of is how I've failed not only as a priest but as a Catholic for falling so far as to view any aspect of God's works as a joke—I might say that every drafted soul is 'poorly off', and not for upbringing.

Major Houlihan looked at me, and I realized she actually wanted me to talk about boxing. I've had stranger confessions, and boxing has always been a topic I'm warm to. I started to think that maybe, for once, this would be easy.

I said, "I always tried to make the time to work at the CYO if I could. After a week of ministering to adults, it's a relief to work with children. Their faith is so uncomplicated."

Her face pinched in an ill-concealed grimace, and I knew I'd said something wrong. Of course I had. If I didn't put my foot in it, people wouldn't know they were talking to me. "Children are wonderful, aren't they?" she asked. "I always thought—hell, I thought—oh, damn—oh! Sorry, Father. I didn't mean to say that in front of you."

"It's quite all right. Please go on."

She let go of the gloves, shook her head, and stepped back. "It's nothing. I don't even know why I came here. I just . . . being a priest must take a lot of time out of your schedule. Hours per day, it has to be just as bad, if not worse, than, say, a nurse's schedule."

"Um, I suppose. It's probably why we call it a vocation and not a job."

"But you still find time in that vocation to work at the CYO and the boxing and who knows what else." She wrung her hands and started pacing again. I stood rooted to the spot, worried that if I made a wrong move she would knock me flat. Featherweight champion or no, I'm pretty sure she could take me. Her voice rose, and there was nothing I could do besides make myself an unappealing target. "I couldn't even find the time for—I mean, why are all the things that are supposed to be hard for women so easy, and all the things that are supposed to be easy completely impossible?" She turned to me then, and her pacing had brought her closer than I'd expected. I looked up at her and wondered when she'd gotten so tall.

"Has something happened?" I asked. I used the same tone I'd once used to talk Klinger down from lobbing a grenade at Burns. I'd like to think I sounded soothing, but we both know what I sound like even on a good day.

And just as suddenly as her energy seemed ready to burst, probably on me, she sat down hard on my bunk, leaving me to heave a quiet sigh of relief and wonder if I should just get rid of the guest chair. No one seemed to want to use it when my bunk was available.

"Donald transferred stateside," she said. "We're getting a divorce. Sorry, Father. I know you don't believe in them."

At least she saw the complication for me, if not the depth of it. "If there's anything I've learned from this war," I said, "it's to be doctrinally flexible. There are quite a few points of dogma that seem somewhat … out of touch in war." I crossed myself for saying it, even if part of me still struggles with the notion that maybe, just maybe, divorce is all right every now and then. Under certain circumstances. Rules work well when society is all around you, but things change when the bombs fall. People do things they wouldn't normally do, just to carve out some corner of sanity in all the madness. Sometimes they make mistakes. And perhaps the Major's marriage to Donald Penobscot was one of those mistakes. Since we are human, and we are fallible, then surely God won't punish us for making mistakes and then attempting to undo them. We are as He made us, and He does love us, and so He'll forgive us.

I am so very glad you aren't reading this.

Major Houlihan made a disgusted noise that snapped me back to our conversation. "Everything is out of touch in this lousy war," she said. "My husband is out of touch, my marriage is out of touch, this whole idea of a life beyond this hellhole is out of touch. You know that I forget there's a world outside the war? Maybe that was how this whole thing happened. I just forgot about Donald when he wasn't here. I'm a terrible person, Father. I'd want to divorce me."

"Now, you know that's not true, Major. You're a good person, and from what I heard, you talked about him a great deal."

"Then maybe I expected too much from him. Maybe he was overwhelmed. Maybe if I hadn't been so persistent—"

"Maybe this isn't your fault," I said.

She shook her head. "No, this has to be my fault."

"Major—"

"Because if this isn't my fault then I have no way to fix it. And there has to be a way to fix it! He can't just leave me."

She wanted to reconcile. She didn't want the divorce, but it was being thrust upon her and she would make the best of the situation. The relief I felt was immediately followed by shame for finding any comfort in her pain. This wasn't about me, it was about her, and about her own impossible expectations of herself. We all have demons, Kathy. They're just more visible when you get this close to the valley of the shadow of death. Major Houlihan's demons came in the form of expectations of perfection, both from herself and from the life she lived. Being helpless had to be the worst possible thing to inflict on her. I wonder if her husband understands that, or if he cares. I'm not a man given to violence, but seeing a proud, strong woman like Margaret Houlihan reduced to this doubting state made him want to knock Donald Penobscot's block off.

The Major looked at me for several minutes, not saying anything. Then she patted the cot next to her. "Come on, Father. Stop hovering and sit down. You're making me nervous . . . more nervous. I won't molest you, I promise."

I did sit, though I made sure it was a respectful distance away. "Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked.

"Get me Donald alone in a room for five minutes," she said. "I'll bring my own gun."

It was one thing to harbor violent thoughts toward the man myself, but hearing her say that with the deadly sincerity of the truly devoted? I was terrified. "Major …"

Major Houlihan patted me on the knee, which didn't help the terror, but I did appreciate her effort. "I'm not serious, Father. Well, I am, but I know it's not going to happen." She lifted her chin. "He isn't worth it."

"That's the spirit," I said, and laid a hand on her shoulder in what I hoped she would understand was support, and not a reason to distrust me.

At which point she burst into tears.

Sis, if there's anything worse than trying to comfort a non-Catholic in tears, it's trying to comfort a non-Catholic woman in tears. The standard prayers are useless, blessings earn you glares, Scripture is suspect, and my own advice is rarely effective. 'This too shall pass' sounds like an invitation for a black eye. I couldn't even say I understood her pain. I've never been married. I've never had my heart broken. Dad walking out on us doesn't count; I'm a priest and you're a nun: we turned out fine. Major Houlihan's problems might as well have been in Swahili for my depth of understanding.

"Why?" she sobbed. "Why wasn't I good enough for him? What more did he want from me? I tried! I tried so hard!" She twisted around, and before I could do anything she hand both her hands twisted in my T-shirt and her face pressed into my shoulder. Her hair didn't smell regulation. That made me sad, for some reason.

I think I probably flapped my hands while I tried to decide whether or not patting her back would result in the loss of limbs. Somewhere near my ear, the Major's voice trailed off to a continuous growl of, "I'll kill him. I'll kill him. See if I don't, Buster. I'll kill him."

I settled for patting her back and saying, "There, there," right before I realized it was probably the wrong thing to do.

She jerked back, her expression stricken through mascara streaks, puffy eyes and messy hair. "Oh, Father, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to … that is, I didn't think I would … I know I'm not supposed to touch you." She dashed the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "You must think I'm pathetic, getting so worked up."

"No!" I hurried to reassure her. Then I realized my hand was still on her back and got, well, very embarrassed. I pulled away quickly, my hands tight to my chest. I forced myself to relax. "I don't think you're pathetic at all. I think you're human, and that you've just lost someone you loved."

"Want to know something awful Father? I think that I was in love with the life I could have had, and Donald just happened to be tacked onto it. I thought we'd get married, and I could still be in the Army. I could go on, married and happy with a man I loved. Maybe a few children after my tour's over, just like Mom. I could get a job state-side. We could get jobs. And I could have everything." Her hands on top of her knees started shaking. "I could have had everything."

"Major," I said, but I didn't know where to go from there.

"Oh, don't listen to me, Father. I'm being maudlin. I'll pull myself together by tomorrow." She stood up, ready to leave, but I couldn't let her. Not like that. I don't know where she gets the strength to go on as though nothing is wrong day after day. No, I do know. She goes on because there's no other option. We all do. She goes on because, if she doesn't, people will die. The harsh realities of the war are enough to either break you or force you to far exceed what you thought you were capable of.

But I know that my ability to carry on and do my best for the soldiers who come through our doors doesn't go very far to dent the feelings of failure that plague me when I'm alone. I didn't expect Major Houlihan to be exactly like me, but even if she was a little like me she was still in pain. How could I let that go and still call myself a man of God?

"Major!" I called after her. She stopped, and I kept talking before she turned around and I lost my nerve. "We're not perfect, Major. None of us. Not you, not your husband, not anyone. God knows I'm not. And words, well, I'm especially not perfect at those. But if we were perfect, if the world was perfect, it would be Heaven. We're not in Heaven. So the best we can do … well, sometimes no matter how hard we try, it's not good enough." She turned, and I looked at my feet to avoid looking at her. "You didn't fail. The cards were just stacked against you, as they say in poker." I looked up to see how I was doing, but her blank expression didn't bode well. "I've made a mess of this, haven't I?"

"Actually, Father, you haven't."

I couldn't quite believe my ears. "I haven't?"

"No, you haven't."

"Could you … could you maybe tell me what I did right, so that I can do it again in the future?"

She didn't answer me. Instead, she laughed, walked back to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't take this the wrong way," she said, "but I really wish more men were like you."

What was I supposed to say to that, Sis? "Oh! Well, I … yes … the world would be a much less … populated place if that were so."

She hugged me then, which wasn't as bad as her crying, but it was just as awkward. "Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome. I still don't know what I did."

She kissed my cheek. I don't mind telling you, I blushed down to my toes. Luckily, she stepped away before I had to say anything. "You were you," she said.

"That was enough?"

"Sleep well, Father," she said, and then she left.

Kathy, I still don't know what I said to turn things around. I don't know if it'll last, or if it was temporary relief. I suppose the point of this letter, if there is any point, is that sometimes we fail; sometimes we stumble and we fall. And sometimes we don't. Sometimes we succeed, even if we never figure out how.

Your brother,

Francis


	7. Evidence of Things We Cannot Yet See

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: Takes place shortly after "Goodbye, Radar".

oOo oOo 7: Evidence of Things We Cannot Yet See oOo oOo

Dear Sis,

Another letter between you, me and the stove, if you have the time. I know it's been a few days, and I was even hoping to push it to a week without needing to confess about confession, but things didn't work out that way.

It all started when Radar left. No, that doesn't look right, now that I've written it. It started when we all came to Korea; we just noticed it when Radar left. He brought so much happiness to the camp, with his innocence and his animals. He reminded us all of home, in a way, because he seemed to bring his own home with him wherever he went. Even after Colonel Blake was killed, Radar didn't lose what made him so naturally child-like.

Losing him has been bittersweet. On the one hand, I'm so relieved he's safe and back in a place where I don't constantly worry that he will see something or experience something that will damage him beyond all hope of repair. But we miss the joy that existed around him, an island war couldn't touch.

I didn't expect to be the one people talked to about Radar. After all, it isn't a sin to miss him. There's nothing to confess. By and large, people don't talk to me unless they've done something they feel guilty about.

So I prayed for Radar, and for the 4077th. I made certain his animals were taken in by Sister Theresa for the children at the orphanage to care for. I delivered a crackerjack sermon on Isaiah 40, paying particular attention to young men who, after stumbling in weariness, are made to fly on wings like eagles. The three people who heard it all got a bit misty-eyed.

It came as something of a surprise, then, when I had my head under the shower that night and I heard the words, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

A perfect case of 'right words, wrong time' if ever there was one.

I almost choked on water when I gasped, and I let go of the shower chain. The flow cut off, and I scrubbed the suds from my face and blinked across the wooden plank separating my stall from the other. I couldn't see more than a blur of brown, pink and gray, but the voice was enough.

Colonel Potter had come in while I was busy lathering, had slipped into the adjoining stall and even set his glasses down on the shelf next to mine, and I only noticed him when he spoke. I suppose we should be grateful I chose the priesthood rather than espionage.

As I tried and failed to focus on him, I realized that neither of us could see the other too well. Despite less than ideal circumstances and a certain amount of nudity, it was actually a better approximation of the confessional than most of my flock got. One of these days, Sis, when the war is over and we've all gone home, I'm going to have a church that isn't a mess tent and a congregation that actually shows up to my services, and a confession booth that is both a booth and hosts confessions. And I'm not going to know what to do with any of it.

But back to the shower confessional and my perpetual struggle to think of something useful to say. The Colonel was waiting for me to come up with some response. When I didn't say anything soon enough, he asked, "I got it right, didn't I, Padre?"

"Um, yes. That's correct, my son." It still strikes me as strange to address a man old enough to be my father as 'my son'.

"Good. Glad to see the old memory hasn't gotten too many rust holes in it."

I was hoping that confirmation would encourage the Colonel to express whatever it was that had brought him there, aside from a need to scrub, but no further words were forthcoming. I finally decided that statement had been to confirm a piece of knowledge rather than to actually confess, and it was safe to turn the water on again and wash my hair.

I had my hair soaped when Colonel Potter spoke again. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." He sounded very serious. I really wished he wouldn't choose the moments when I was covered in suds as his openers, but it isn't for me to complain. Christ suffered on the cross. I just had to put up with an itchy scalp.

"Oh!" I said and I felt the soap slide down the side of my face. "Very well, how long has it been since your last confession?" I knew this part, Sis, I really did, but the Colonel is a very intimidating presence even in the shower, and it left me scrambling for rituals I had thought second-nature.

"I'm Methodist, Padre. Confession isn't our bailiwick. Really, I just wanted to get something off my chest, and that sounded like confession to me. I would have talked to Radar, but, well ..."

"Yes," I said. "Not . . . I mean … of course I'll hear your confession." When he didn't say anything right away I snatched a second to rinse off my hair.

Colonel Potter, who usually comes off like he could fight the Battle of the Bulge single-handedly and then spend the rest of the day riding a horse through the Badlands, sounded like an old man when he spoke. I don't know which frightened me more: the frailty in that tone, or the words "I think I've lost my faith."

"Oh," I said, with a sinking feeling. It's a very usual confession to hear over here. War makes zealots of atheists of many, but those trapped on the cusp of faith and despair are perhaps the most difficult. They could be helped, I think, but I just don't usually know how unless they're Catholic. Waiting and praying for guidance tends to do the trick for me, but for everyone else? I just don't know. And Potter always seemed so solid, even in the face of his responsibilities to us and to the Army. He was one of my few regulars on Sundays. If he was faltering, we were all in trouble.

He held up a blurry hand. "Don't worry, Padre. You've done your job. It's not my faith in God that's gotten all shaken up. That's the same as it ever was, which was never great but good enough." I relaxed a bit, but knew we weren't out of the woods yet. "No, for me this just might be worse. You see, Father, I've lost my faith in war."

"Go on," I said, but I didn't really understand.

"This is my third war. The other two were hell, there's no denying it, but I always felt like we were doing something good. Everything we went through in the trenches and on the beaches was worth it because what we were fighting needed to be fought. Here? Padre, I'm not even certain what it is we're fighting here, besides the inevitable."

Now, you know I've thought the same since I got here, but I'm a man of peace. It's in the job description. Hearing a man who's made a career out of war—who is respected within the military—express the same opinion was disquieting. With Colonel Potter giving up on the war, I had to wonder if there was anyone in Korea who thought we should be there. "May I ask what led you to this?"

"Oh, it was no one thing. Not Radar's leaving, if you think that's what did it. Though I have to say, that was a part of it. No, I reckon it's the entire war from start to finish building on me. Reminds me of my bunions. And that is no way to think of a war." He heaved a sigh. "What happened, Padre? When did we start fighting wars that didn't mean anything to anyone but the pencil-pushers?"

"I don't—"

"Hold it there, Padre. Just let me say my piece, then you can dole out the Hail Marys."

I think I've been giving you the idea that confession with Protestants is always an adventure. That idea is correct. And confession with cranky colonels doubting their entire history and purpose is even more difficult. Then again, if he wanted to do the talking, it meant I didn't have to. I'm a very good listener.

"When that boy left," Potter said, slowly and carefully, as though he was thinking about each word before it came out, "part of me felt like my own son had gone off to college. I wouldn't get to see him anymore. He wouldn't be around to help out, and do all those things that only Radar could do. But that was good because he was making a real life for himself someplace where he wasn't getting bombed and shot at for no reason at all. Sitting there at my desk, thinking that? I don't mind telling you, Padre, but it scared my petooties off.

"I looked out my window at the people here. Pierce, drinking himself into oblivion because it's a better place than South Korea. Hunnicutt reading all those letters from his wife and eating the crumbs of her cookies. Even Winchester. He'd be back in Boston if not for the war. And for the first time in my life, I don't think we've gained more having them here than the world lost for them not being back where they belong. I'm not certain I sent Radar home a better man for having stared death in the face."

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. Colonel Potter has the ability to say something and mean it so much that I can't help but agree with him. If I could do half of what he can with simple, honest truth, I would be a much better priest. In the wake of his statement, I had no platitudes, and no equivalent truths. "He helped save lives." I sounded so uncertain, I didn't even believe myself. "Surely that's worth something."

"Buffalo bagels. They're lives that should never have gotten put on the line in the first place. Dammit, Padre, how can I be a good CO if I can't even get behind us being here?"

All I had was my own thoughts on the war, my own stance on why I care and why I continue to struggle to help in whatever way I can. I don't believe in war, and I don't think I ever will. Not even Potter could convince me that the benefits outweighed the horrific costs. But I do believe in the people fighting a war. "You never met Colonel Blake, did you?" I asked.

"No, I never had the pleasure."

"Colonel Blake was drafted, Sir. He didn't belong in war any more than Radar did, and I think he knew that. I think it was why he drank as much as he did: he hated the war. He hated everything that went with the war."

"What—"

I kept going before I lost my nerve. "But Colonel Blake believed in us. Each and every one of us. I know . . . I know it's not the same. I know that it doesn't replace the faith that was lost, but you believed in Radar. It's why you miss him. It's why we all miss him. And you can still believe in your people. You can believe in getting them all home, each in their own time."

There was a long silence from the other side of the shower, and I began to fear that I'd managed to say the wrong thing again. I've been on the receiving end of Potter's dismissals only a few times, but it's never been a pleasant experience. I braced myself for harsh words, but they never came.

Colonel Potter picked up his glasses, toweled off, put on his robe and started to walk away. I felt like that was my third strike. I was out. I hardly ever managed comfort when it was really needed. I must have sounded like a broken man when I asked, "Should I have just prescribed three Hail Marys and an Our Father?"

And then Potter stopped. He didn't just leave, and I think he might have looked at me. "Nah," he said. "You're good at your job, Padre. Better than I thought. It's just this situation that's goddamn hopeless. Pardon my language."

He did leave after that, Sis, but I didn't. How could I? Colonel Potter believes I'm good at the job. He didn't blame me when he could have. He thinks I do good work. Failure is easy to accept. Success, even partial, will take a lot longer to believe.

Slowly getting there,

Francis


	8. As Though We had Never Been Here

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: Takes place after 'The Life You Save'.

oOo oOo 8: As Though We had Never Been Here oOo oOo

Dear Sis,

A slightly reluctant stove-side confession tonight, I'm afraid. Reluctant because it wasn't a great day, and I would have loved to write you a genuine letter, rather than one destined for incineration, and because the entire situation has such a feeling of the surreal I wish I could believe it was a dream of the soul-weary.

I've pulled garbage duty, Sis. I don't know how the last person managed to handle this. I'm up to my elbows in liquefying lettuce and empty boxes. There were no garbage trucks available, or at least none functional. Colonel Potter has assured me that they'll be up and running by tomorrow or the next day, but until that happens I'll stand outside the mess tent with a broom, prodding at a mountain of refuse and hoping the whole thing doesn't come down around my ears.

After such a day, it was a genuine pleasure to take a lukewarm shower that did very little to mitigate the smell of lettuce and eggs in my hair, and then stumble off to my tent. I was hoping to get some shut-eye before the next day, or at least lie there long enough to relax my aching arms. I wasn't feeling particularly priestly, or even particularly charitable, so when I turned on my light to find Charles Emerson Winchester sitting in the dark it was all I could do not to tell him to get out and come back in the morning.

It was his look that froze me. Major Winchester is supremely confident—some might even say arrogant. He is an excellent doctor, and no one knows it better than he does. I don't want to say he's annoying, but I do have difficulty not belting him upon occasion.

But he didn't look confident, or really anything. He'd been sitting in the dark in my tent, his elbows on his knees, staring at nothing. He was wearing an apron covered in blood stains.

He was so blank, Kathy. I knew I must have missed something during garbage detail, although I was certainly aware Major Winchester's recent behavior had been strange. He'd had the entire motor pool disassembled, leading to my problem with the garbage trucks.

He didn't look up when he said, "You smell vile, Father. Did you bathe in the mess tent?"

"Why you—" I bit off the anger and the image of the mountain of garbage that conjured up. The man was in some deep sort of pain. He wasn't thinking straight. He probably didn't even realize what he'd done. As I said, Major Winchester was a proud man. To come to me meant he had a crisis of faith so deep he could see no alternative. I couldn't make this about me and my problems. "What's wrong, Major?"

His laughter was as hollow as his expression. "Whatever makes you think something's wrong, Father?" he asked. "I'm right as rain."

"You're sitting in my tent, in the dark, covered in blood. Tell me what happened."

He chuckled again, and I really was getting worried. "You have a more forceful personality than people credit you with. Really, you do."

I crouched down in front of him. "Charles," I said. The name seemed strange even as I said it, but I needed to get through to him somehow. "What happened?"

He reached for his head, then lowered his hand again. "One inch," he said.

"Sorry?"

"Yes, I suppose you are," he said. Before I could take offense, he went on. "One inch: a bullet went through my cap but missed my head, and the distance between them was approximately one inch. And in that inch lay the difference between life and death. There but for the grace of olive drab went I."

"You nearly died."

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

"Is that why—" I decided it might be best not to ask him if that was why he'd been acting insane. Somehow, that didn't seem as compassionate as I wanted to be. "Was this during the sniper attack?"

He didn't say anything, and he had yet to actually look at me. I didn't know why he'd come to me when he could have just as easily done this in his own tent. Maybe he thought I would make less noise than Hawkeye and BJ. Maybe he picked a door, and my tent just happened to be the one he stumbled into.

Whatever his reasons, I couldn't sit idly by. Even if he had thought me to be a passive participant, the man had been very close to dying. That put his problem, if not firmly in my job description, close enough for the Army.

And then he did look at me, and it wasn't the look of someone seeking aid. Contempt is something that causes me to respond in funny ways, Sis. "I can see what you're thinking, but I don't want your fatuous attempts at comfort, Father," he said. "I just watched a boy die, and there was nothing holy in the experience. Save any mention of Heaven for the credulous young men in post-op."

If there has ever been a good indicator of how poor a priest I really am, it was my reaction to that. Grief and terror make idiots of us all. I've been shouted at, cursed and railed against as much as any man of the cloth in a warzone. I know that my particular brand of reassurance doesn't help everyone, and by and large I accept what's thrown at me. They're children, those boys sent off to die at the front, and they've been put in an untenable position. I can't blame them for what seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable response to the situation.

Major Winchester wasn't angry, though. He didn't shout, or rail. He looked at me and dismissed me and everything I stood for, as though all my attempts to do good around the camp were the ineffectual nuisances I sometimes worried they might be.

The anger hurts, Kathy, but it's expected and that softens the blow. I didn't see Major Winchester coming, and he hit deeper than simple hurt. All of a sudden I wasn't Father Mulcahy, mild-mannered chaplain to the local population of desperate hedonists. I was ten years old, my temper snapping after Eddie Connelly made fun of me one too many times. You remember that, don't you? I can still feel the nuns dragging us apart. I hate to admit how much pride I felt seeing his black eye for the rest of the week.

I managed not to flatten Major Winchester, but all that fury redirected itself with the relentlessness of a massive garbage pile. I sprang to my feet and towered over him as much as I could. "Now, look here, Major. You came into my tent without my knowledge while I was busy playing David to the garbage Goliath, so please don't act like I'm imposing on you!"

We both stared at one another for several seconds, stunned into silence. Then I turned away and collapsed onto my bunk. I scrubbed a hand across my face and tried to compose myself.

Through my fingers I said, "Major, I have to apologize. That was inexcusable. I just … I don't know what I can do for you."

"There's nothing you can do, Father. I've thought long and hard about it, and that is the simple conclusion to which I have come." He stood up. "Deepest apologies for disturbing you."

"Major, wait!" I caught his sleeve. He looked at me, but he didn't seem terribly confident in my abilities. That stiffened something in my spine. I was going to do this. I was going to help Charles Emerson Winchester whether he wanted me to or not. "Major, we've all asked ourselves what comes after this life. We can't help it, so close to so much death. And you got closer than most of us."

Major Winchester looked down at my hand, and his smile was almost pitying, but I couldn't be certain who was being pitied. "Father, I've spent days going over it: in the operating room, in post op. I even went to battalion aid."

The bloody apron made sudden, terrible sense, Kathy. He must have come back from there and ducked into my tent before anyone could see him. "Major," I whispered.

"I saw a young man die. Did you know that? Of course you didn't. I watched the whole thing. Do you know what I realized, seeing him go out piece by piece?" He looked at me, and I couldn't move. Have you ever been struck by something so profoundly wrong that there is nothing you can think of to fix it? "I know what comes after death: nothing. Absolutely nothing. We just die at any time for any reason, with no white light and no angelic chorus." He closed his eyes. "Not a bang, but a whimper."

"You can't know that," I said. "No one can."

"Ah, so you admit you don't either. No revelations in the priesthood, Father? Conversations with God?" he asked. Then he answered himself, "No, you're just as ignorant as anyone else. You just hide it behind your collar."

"Some chaplains," I said, measuring each word, "claim to have spoken to God. I never have. Maybe that makes me a poor priest, but I've never based my beliefs in proof. It's not faith without a leap."

"You expect me to believe just because you do?"

"No, I don't." It got his attention, at least. "I have met so many good people in my life, and the majority of them didn't believe as I did. I can't believe, after meeting them, that I have the market cornered on answers. What I believe is what rings true to me: what gives me hope in this hopeless situation. I won't tell you to believe as I do, but I will tell you to believe in something. Anything. It doesn't have to be Catholicism or Presbyterianism. You don't even—" I nearly choked on the words, "—you don't even have to believe in God. Hawkeye … I think he just believes in people, and for him it's enough. The human spirit brings him the comfort and the security that God brings me."

"Ah, but a belief in people does not guarantee any sort of, ahem, afterlife, Father."

I really wished he didn't treat this discussion as an academic debate. I could see him shutting down his emotional investment in this, treating it as just another exercise. "You'd have to ask Hawkeye about the particulars of his faith, or lack thereof, but I would have to imagine that a life lived in the uncertainty of agnosticism would have to be a life that minimizes regret. Buddhists have reincarnation: a second chance, if you will. We have Heaven, and the forgiveness of a loving God. Agnosticism has those possibilities, but also allows for the possibility of nothing at all, and with that sort of oblivion looming over you, could you help but make certain you did everything you were hoping to do in life as soon as possible, and as fully as you're able? It takes a very particular sort of man to live his life in such a way. Hawkeye manages, but I don't think I could do it. Do you?"

Major Winchester lowered his gaze, and his confrontational stance eased up. "You didn't, by chance, fence when you were younger?"

"Boxing only."

"A shame. You certainly have an admirable riposte hidden beneath your stole."

"Major, this wasn't about winning." I let him go and stepped back, my confidence waning as quickly as it had waxed. "This was my attempt to help you somehow, even if it isn't the sort of help I would usually recommend. Maybe I should stick to my usual and let other people handle the more secular advice."

"If it comforts you, and really it should, my current dilemma is too great for any five-minute conversation to assuage over-much," Winchester said. He sounded disinterested, even condescending, but he was looking at me in such an earnest manner I had to think his tone was instinctive rather than intentional. "The fact that you gave me anything at all to think about does you credit."

I mustered a smile, but it didn't feel like a victory. In my misguided confidence, I fear I somehow advised him not so much to seek the comfort of the Church, but rather to ascribe to secular humanism. I admitted to him that I couldn't be entirely certain there was an afterlife. I had, in the space of those moments, cut my own beliefs—my vocation—down to nothing in an attempt to reach Major Winchester, and it was likely a wasted gesture.

My only consolation was that he didn't know how badly I'd fumbled, how far I'd stepped outside of what a good priest would have done. I'm supposed to guide these people, Sis. I'm supposed to be the shining example of all they could be. Instead, I beg them to believe in anything at all, and I question dogma whenever the situation gets bad, rather than questioning the situation through the lens of dogma. What I may be doing to these poor people's souls aside, what will I do when I return stateside? My excuse has always been that in war extraordinary understanding and acceptance must take place, or we'll never get anywhere. But back in America I'll need to believe everything I've been questioning. I'll need to be as steadfast in my faith, not only in God but in the Church, as I was before Korea.

And if I do somehow gain some confidence, I fear what I might say in it. I just advocated secular humanism thanks to confidence! If I was back in America and said something like that to a bishop, he would be well within his rights to investigate me, if not move for laicization. But I think about how my opinions have changed, being here. My attitudes about divorce are so hazy they could be blown over by a stiff breeze. I still believe in Heaven, but I worry about who gets to go there. The notion that only Catholics—or even broadening the category to Christians—get to go there flies in the face of my deep belief in a loving God. If there is any one thing I still believe, in spite of all the horror I've seen, it is that God loves us. But that core belief has made me question almost everything else: how can there be war if he loves us? The answer seems to be that he loves us enough to grant us free will; that he's more like a parent who recognizes the need to allow His children to make mistakes. Which contradicts Church teachings about predestination. And in this war I see so many little children, most of whom are Buddhists, and the notion that if they died tomorrow they would go to Hell thanks to Original Sin is anathema to me. And again, it contradicts the notion of a loving God.

All my trappings have been stripped away here, Sis. All my doctrine has been shaken up and in some cases broken beyond repair. What do I do when I get home and have to face other priests who still believe everything they were taught in Seminary? I think I can still do good works in the priesthood. I still see it as a force for good, often for people who see no other good in their lives. I still feel my vocation. If I'm honest, I feel it now more strongly than ever. It's just that my vision of being a priest and the Church's vision are, at times, at odds.

I was drowning in these realizations last night, Kathy. I was so far down in despair I couldn't see a way out. But then Major Winchester asked, "When is your ecumenical service, Father?"

I couldn't believe my ears. "I'm sorry?"

"Your non-denominational service next Sunday. When is it?"

I couldn't believe my ears. "Eleven thirty."

He nodded and said, "I must inform you that you've convinced me of nothing." Then his voice dropped to something quiet and confidential. "But a good debater always hears all sides of the argument."

"Of course." He made his way to the tent door. Before he could leave, I called out, "See you Sunday, Major."

He only spared me a quick glance over his shoulder, but it was a serious glance. With Major Winchester, we must count our victories where we can. "Father," he said, and then slipped through the door.

You know, Kathy, I don't think I handled this situation well, but I can't come up with any other way to have gone about it. I've convinced Major Winchester to come to services, which is a miracle I never thought I'd see in Korea, but I can't believe his zeal will last. Inside a week, I predict I'll be back down to my three current regulars, and Colonel Potter falling asleep on the third pew.

One thing did become very clear to me during my silent crisis: I love everyone in camp, and everyone who comes through. My strange, wayward flock is so scattered some of them wound up on the moon. There are Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, agnostics and atheists all around me, and I love them. I pray for their souls, yes, but even more than that, I go out into camp and I don't care what they believe. They as people deserve Heaven, regardless of what they believe, and if God really is as loving as I have to believe he is, we will all, each and every soul in the 4077th, end up there.

Love to you too,

Francis


	9. There but for the Grace of Someone

Title: Between You, Me, and the Stove

Author: Nemo the Everbeing

Rating: PG for semi-honest conversations about a lot of hard topics.

Disclaimer: Though they've passed through multiple hands, 'M*A*S*H' and its characters currently belong to Twentieth Century Fox. I don't own anything, and make no money off this piece.

Historian's Note: Takes place about a year after 'Goodbye, Farewell and Amen'. It should be noted that I've never seen 'AfterMASH' and so I only deal with the events as they were presented in 'MASH' and extrapolate from there.

oOo oOo 9: There but for the Grace of Someone oOo oOo

Dear Dad,

Isn't it funny? I've been home almost a year now, and I still find it easier to write you letters than just make my way across town to talk to you. Maybe it's habit. Maybe having unwritten conversations reminds us why we used to drive one another nuts. We have Sunday dinner together every week, more dinners if I can work it into my schedule at Maine Med. I see you now more than I have since I was a kid, so why is it that every time I'm around you the only topic springs to mind is the weather?

There are so many things I still want to tell you, so I guess it's pen and paper or nothing. For the past two weeks I've been working on one whopper of a letter, telling you about how it's been to come home. Coming home has been sort of like Oz: both great and terrible. The great I'd expected. The terrible was a shock. If you had suggested to me that I'd miss one lousy thing about Korea, I would have laughed myself silly.

I've been trying to write this letter explaining everything, but it hasn't come together. Every time I think I've got it I remember something else I wanted to say, or some reason why the last two pages don't make any sense. I've been going crazy just trying to express what I think. You know me, Dad. This is one problem I've never run into before.

If you're wondering, I've scrapped the old letter. I burned it in my stove and everything. You see, yesterday I finally had the experience that let me sum up the whole crummy situation, so instead of boring you with sixteen pages of hemming and hawing, I'll just tell you about yesterday and let you interpret the rest.

You may have heard that a priest visited our little town. Word travels fast, and I don't think Crabapple Cove has seen a man of that particular brand of cloth since the French sent explorers through. I was making my way to the grocery store for a refill on eggs, bacon and booze, and maybe to spend some time rolling around in the fresh produce. It's still incredible to me how much fresh fruit exists in one place at one time here.

I was stopped dead on the sidewalk when I saw a man all in black walking down the street. It wasn't the collar that tipped me off, but one look at that particular moon face and blonde hair and for a second I was back in Korea.

I started running before I could think not to, and Father Mulcahy found himself on the receiving end of a hug masquerading as a flying tackle. Everyone on the street stopped and stared at Crazy Doctor Pierce the Younger (as opposed to Crazy Doctor Pierce the Elder) hugging a priest on a public thoroughfare.

"Hawkeye!" he gasped.

I barely heard him. "Father! You're a sight for sober eyes!" I pulled away and held him by the arms. "Look at you. I barely recognized you without the olive drab, let alone wearing that very nice … box." I stared at the little gadget hooked onto his belt, and followed the cords all the way up to his ears. "You're wearing a box," I said again, and I was definitely back in Korea, Dad. I remembered that particular feeling of shell shock all too well. "Is that a hearing aid?"

He glanced to one side, and I noticed that our onlookers were still onlooking. "Could we perhaps continue this conversation without the audience?"

I shook myself out of at least some of the stupefaction. "Oh, yeah, sure. Come on, I got a house not too far from here." I started walking, then turned around to be certain he was still there and I hadn't started going really crazy. But there he was in black slacks and a black shirt over that white collar. I recognized the crucifix, though. It even had the divot in it where it got caught in the door of the OR during one of those twenty-hour marathons. I grinned at all the other people staring at us, and they hurried back to their business. I turned to him, but my grin didn't fool him for a minute. He's always been quick on the uptake. I held out my arms and said, "Hawkeye Pierce. Still good for starting rumors."

He gave me that patient smile he always used to when he was trying not to box my ears. My smile might as well have dropped off the face of the earth. I got caught up staring at his hearing aid again, but he cleared his throat and got us moving before I could get maudlin.

You've probably heard all of this. I can't imagine Mrs. Thomas didn't tell Mr. Potts, and that he didn't tell Valerie, who didn't tell Tom, Dick, and Harry, all of whom told Susie. And Susie definitely told you all about the company your wayward son's been keeping.

But the story ends and the rumors begin when the door closed behind us. Before you start wondering if we eloped—Father Mulcahy both officiating and participating in the ceremony—let me set the record straight.

Once we got inside, I sat him down at the kitchen table and poured us both gin, for old time's sake. Then I grabbed my dopp kit and advanced with otoscope extended.

Mulcahy looked embarrassed. "Hawkeye," he said, "you really don't need to—"

"Humor an old doctor, Father. Pull out your aid and say 'ah'."

Mulcahy pulled the earpieces out one by one, then sat quietly while I poked at him. He acted like a habitual patient, which I suppose he must have been by then. He winced a little as I introduced the otoscope.

"Does that hurt?" I asked.

He didn't say anything. It took me a second to realize he couldn't hear me. I was glad he couldn't see my own wince. I thought we'd all got out of Korea in one piece, you know. After what happened to Henry that was incredibly important to me. I knew the Father had stayed behind to make certain his orphans were taken care of. Whatever happened to him must have happened then. Dammit. Of all the people who didn't deserve this, Mulcahy topped my list. He was the best of us, you know? When everyone else was falling apart, Mulcahy carried on without a single complaint.

Once I was done looking he slipped his hearing aid back in. "Did that hurt?" I asked again.

"It's not bad. It's really only noticeable when people are sticking things in my ears." He gave me a rueful smile.

I smirked back. "Strictly medicinal sticking, Father." I couldn't help but get serious then. "The scarring on your eardrum is pretty bad, but I still don't think it accounts for the degree of hearing loss you've got."

"The doctors at the VA said it was nerve damage. They fixed the damage to my eardrum and got rid of the tinnitus … more or less … but there was nothing to be done for my hearing."

I listened to his voice for the flatness that came with the inability to hear, but he still had his inflection intact. "Sounds like the aid helps."

"It lets me do my job," he said. "But I don't like to wear it for more than a few hours. It starts to hurt, and my tinnitus comes back."

"I could look into it for you." I do have connections in the ENT department at Maine Med. I don't have a lot of connections, but I do have them, and I haven't had better cause to use them since I got back stateside.

He just shook his head and gave me the look that told me I'd missed the bus somewhere. He said, "I didn't come here for a checkup, Hawkeye."

"Then it's not that I'm not happy to see you, but why did you come?"

Mulcahy took a drink of his gin, and I joined him. If I was wearing a bathrobe and the room smelled a little more like feet, I'd think that Crabapple Cove had been one big dream. Then he looked up and said, "I guess I just feel a little lost."

Well, Dad, I could sure relate to that. The part of me that isn't waiting to wake up back at the 4077th is busy realizing that the idealized world I left behind might have gotten a little too idealized for its own good. It can't hope to live up to the dreams I had of it.

Did I say any of this to the priest spilling his guts to me? No, I just took another drink.

"I'm living in Philadelphia," he said. "That's where I'm from, you know."

"Yeah, I think you might have mentioned that."

"I'm attached to one of the larger parishes, but I'm spending most of my time building a ministry for the deaf."

I almost told him that if that was lost, I took a wrong turn at Main Street and ended up on Jupiter. But here's the thing, Dad: for all my complaints, I wouldn't look lost either. There I was about to reflexively deride his crisis, when mine came complete with a nice house in my hometown and a job as a trauma surgeon in one of the best hospitals in the country. Hypocrisy, thy name is Hawkeye.

He went on talking. The nice thing about Father Mulcahy is that, despite being an uncannily good listener, he's also an uncannily good airhead right when you need him not to notice your existential crisis. "I've been going to the local deaf clubs to work on my sign language anyway, so it was a logical extension of my efforts. My bishop certainly supports it, although that may be because it gets me out of his hair for a few hours a day."

"Someone doesn't want you in his hair. Is he crazy?" I asked.

He always looks pained when he gets complimented. "We have certain dogmatic differences of opinion. He dislikes how accepting I am about quite a few things the Church frowns on. I've tried to explain that the war changed a great many of my views, but he isn't that interested in hearing me defend what he must see as second-cousin to blasphemy."

"Are you worried about him?" I asked.

"Oh, no. No, we respect one another. He may not agree with me, but he isn't going to be writing the Vatican in an attempt to laicize me. I'm just going to have to learn to sit through long-winded lectures about the primacy of Church doctrine." A wicked smile lit up his face for just a moment. "At least my aid has volume control."

I laughed until I almost passed out from lack of air. I'd forgotten how sneaky the Father's wit could be. When I finally managed to catch my breath, I said, "Then forgive me for sounding insensitive, but you've got a good job in your hometown. What's wrong?"

I really wanted him to tell me, Dad, because maybe we'd come down with the same disease. I had this crazy idea that if Father Mulcahy, wise man of the 4077th, could articulate his own confusion then he'd somehow manage to explain mine. What can I say? Your son is mercenary in his confessions.

And speaking of, it struck me right then what was happening: a confession. Father Mulcahy, who had all the priests in Philly ready and waiting to bend an ear to a brother in collars, had come to the tiniest of tiny towns in Maine to confess to a doctor with a drinking problem. I couldn't help but think, as I have often in the past, that if there was a God he had to be half-gone on Swamp gin.

It was such a shock, I blurted out, "Hey, wait a minute. Are you confessing to me?"

He looked at me like a deer looks at the oncoming freight train. "Well, yes. I suppose I am."

"Oh," I said. "Well, this is a surprise. But don't worry, Father. Father Pierce's confessional is always open." I leaned on the table next to him and gave him my very best leer. "Tell me all about it, my son."

He laughed and said, "You're the only person I can think of who makes a less believable priest than Klinger."

"Hey, you ever keep in touch with him after everything? I know you two stayed together."

"Well, they found Soon-Lee's parents, if that's what you were wondering, but I admit I lost track of him once we both returned to the States. Last I heard he was going back to Toledo with hopes of running a television repair business."

"We all kind of drifted apart after the war, didn't we? BJ's back with his perfect wife and their perfect life in San Francisco, Charles is back to drinking brandy and beating the servants, and Potter's retired. Of course, that was last I heard, which was within that first month back. After one or two letters, you realize the only thing you ever had in common with the other people over there was hating the war." I looked down at him, and he looked up at me. "Wow, Father," I said, "this confession schtick is harder than I thought. I offer to hear yours and end up telling you mine instead."

"Actually, your confession wasn't too far off the mark for me. I keep turning around, wherever I am, expecting to see you or BJ or Major Houlihan. It was only three years of my life, but I feel like everything that's come after and everything that came before are somehow not as important. It's very unfair of me, but no matter what I do here, no matter how much good I accomplish, I feel like nothing I can ever do here will be as worthwhile as what I did there. I spent three years feeling like I didn't make a difference, only to realize that my contributions to the 4077th may well have been the greatest of my life. I hated that war. I hated the death and the senseless loss of life, but I would give anything to feel half as useful as I was there."

Let it be known that, much as I had hoped he'd say something that approached what I'd been feeling, I didn't expect him to hit the nail so hard on the head he cracked its little metal skull. I sat down in my chair and belted the rest of my gin. When I looked up, poor Mulcahy looked like I'd laid into him instead of wallowing in my own misery.

"I suppose I am being a bit maudlin," he said.

I started laughing, and once I started I couldn't stop. I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my chair, and had to put my empty glass down before I dropped it.

Mulcahy started fidgeting. "Now, I really don't think it was that funny."

I waved my hand at him in an effort to convince him it wasn't him, that it was me quietly going crazy in the corner. "No, Father," I managed between laughs and gasps, "I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at me. Okay, maybe I'm laughing at us, because you just managed the double-whammy: two confessions for the price of one."

He still looked disapproving. You could take lessons in disapproving from Father Mulcahy. "I still don't understand," he said.

I wiped at my eyes and got my breathing under control. "Father," I said, "you managed to sum up in thirty second what I've spent the last six months trying to say. You're not just good; if they gave out prizes for telepathy, you'd already know you got them."

"You mean you—"

"Great house, great job, great doctor, great life, and I want to scream the whole thing down around my ears half the time. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Mulcahy put his hand over mine and said, "We don't miss the war. We're not that selfish."

"Or that crazy. Yet."

"But when we came home we realized that some things there were good. And we want it both ways."

"We want the cushy life and the job with regular hours here, but we want the camaraderie we had there, not to mention the feeling we could do six impossible things before breakfast."

"I think the quote was 'believed' six impossible things before breakfast."

"We did that too."

He worried the mug in his hands enough I was afraid he'd make fire. "It just feels so ungrateful of me. I weathered the storm, and this should be my reward: perhaps not what I expected, but every bit as good. Why can't I just be content with my … with my …"

"The phrase you're looking for is 'happily ever after'," I said.

"Yes," he said, "yes, it is."

"My glib answer, which you should know is also my first answer, is that I'm a selfish bastard, but that doesn't track if we're both feeling it."

"Oh, I'm quite selfish as well."

"Father, the difference between your selfishness and mine is on the scale of farm league versus the World Series."

"I'm afraid you overestimate me," he said and went back to fiddling with the mug.

I took it from him before he managed cold fusion. "Someone should," I said.

"Hawkeye," he started, but I wouldn't let him finish.

"You were the best of us, you know? When I saw you with that hearing aid, all I could think was how unfair it was that you were the one to get your eardrums blasted while the rest of us came home in one piece. Where's the justice in that?"

His voice wobbled when he said, "God never gives us a challenge we can't overcome."

"Yeah, well maybe God should pick on someone his own size."

"Hawkeye!"

I was on a roll, Dad. A brick wall couldn't stop me. "I admired you so much, you know? You just sailed above all that pain and misery. You were cheerful. You were calm. You were everything we wished we could be, but were too busy wetting ourselves in fear to manage. But you never believed it. You never thought you were as good, or as brave, or as all-around incredible as we knew you were."

"You were the ones saving lives!"

"Did you forget about the time you volunteered to fly counterweight on the helicopter going to the front line for casualties? Or how about that field tracheotomy you did? Believe me, Father, that's a procedure that's still scary after four years of medical school, but you did it with a pocket knife and an eye-dropper!"

"I just did what I had to do," he whispered.

"We all did. It's just that you're the only one who never saw how what you did inspired us to do what we did."

Mulcahy didn't have the decency to look comforted. Instead, he looked haunted. "I failed so many times, Hawkeye, with such dire consequences."

"I still remember the faces of all the kids I couldn't save."

"How can we possibly miss that?" he asked.

Now, I'm smart enough to know a dodge when I see one. He changed the subject so he wouldn't have to accept something as terrible as a compliment, but I was determined to shower him in them until he had no choice but to believe he was as amazing as I was convinced he was. I completely forgot that I lived in Maine and he lived in Philly. I'd just march over to his tent and bother him until he threw me out or believed me, and if he threw me out I'd come back. I've been thrown out by more blondes than he'll ever meet, but I'm good at winning myself back into their good graces.

But that sort of project takes time, and the realization of where I was hit me again. Feeding Mulcahy's undernourished ego was a long-term project, and he was a guy with only a short-term availability to me.

He asked again, "How could we possibly miss such a dreadful time in our lives?"

"Why did you come here?" I asked him. "Pretty sure the answer is the same to both questions."

"Oh," he said, and I realized that answer had never occurred to him. Boiling down your entire sense of uselessness and existential upheaval down to 'I'm lonely' is always something of a let-down.

"BJ has Peg and Erin," I said. "Colonel Potter has Mildred. Klinger has Soon-Lee; Margaret has a huge new nursing staff to intimidate; Charles has that sister he's crazy about, and last I heard, he was engaged."

"Good Lord," Mulcahy said.

We took a moment to try to imagine our bald, blue-blooded boob engaged to anyone. Then I said, "The point is, they all had people to go home to."

"You have your father, Hawkeye."

"And you've got your sister the sister. And if you love her half as much as I love my dad, it should be enough, but there's still something missing, right?"

"I—right."

"All those people? They need one another. My dad's a great guy, but he doesn't need me, and your sister's an independent nun. She doesn't need you."

"We miss being needed," Mulcahy said.

"Got it in one."

He looked a little blown away. Which meant that he looked like I felt. "Put it like that, and it all sounds so …"

"If you say 'selfish' again, I might take offense. Besides, it's not selfish, it's normal."

"I was going to say 'simple'."

"Oh, well, most big revelations are when you boil them down." I caught his eye and offered him up one of my most deadly smiles. "And there's a simple solution to our simple problem."

"Oh?"

"You need to be needed; I need to be needed, so why don't we just need each other?"

I might have leered, Dad. I might have even given him a little eyebrow-waggle. It's habit, more than anything. Being suggestive never meant anything in Korea—it was just me being me—and I forgot how flustered Mulcahy used to get whenever I did it to him. Every once in a while he'd field my teasing with a zinger of his own, but more often than not he'd just blush and stammer. And he'd already used up his sly joke of the day. So it was no surprise when he turned bright red and spluttered, "Hawkeye, really!"

"Whoa! You got me all wrong," I said, ready to save our tentative post-war relationship before my big mouth could sink it. "I respect you too much, admire you too much, and your jealous husband is the scariest jealous husband of all."

His expression cleared to a soft smile. "What did you mean, then?"

"Well, forgive me if I'm being World Series selfish here, but there are deaf clubs in Portland too. Even Catholics, from what I hear. I'd never subject you to Crabapple Cove for the rest of your life, but Portland is an up-and-coming place. Maybe even a place with a bishop who's willing to entertain a radical idea or two."

"Hawkeye, except for three years, I've lived in Philadelphia all my life."

"And I've lived in Crabapple Cove all of mine." I fell back on satire to cover my disappointment. "I can't believe you wouldn't uproot your entire life on the whim of some crazy doctor who won't budge from his. This is a decision I'll live to regret." Then, to make sure he understood I wasn't really angry with him, I let myself be serious again, if only for a sentence. "Like I said: World Series."

His hand on my wrist felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. "No," he said, "just farm league. And very understandable."

"Yeah, well," I said, but couldn't think of any snappy follow-up.

"I like your idea," he said.

That was a surprise. "You do?"

Mulcahy nodded. "It may be a friendship only based in shared experience and needing to be needed, but it's there. It would be wrong to turn down something God has so kindly put together for us."

I kept my mouth shut about my theories on how this had happened, which all pretty much chalked it up to coincidence. There are some things the Father and I are always going to disagree about.

"I took the Greyhound here," he said. "It was only seven hours."

"It's a little long for day trips. Does your place have an extra bed?"

"No, but I have been eyeing a pull-out couch. And if not that, well, I could probably find some hay."

"And lay me in a manger? Don't compare me to Jesus, Father; my ego can't take the strain."

"Then I'd best buy the pull-out couch."

"So this is it?" I asked. "We're really going to visit one another?"

"If you're willing," he said.

"Oh, I'm willing. I'm also ready and able. What about you?"

"All of the above," he said. He drummed his finger on the table and gave me that coy look he wears when he's either making a joke or letting me in on a secret. "And who knows? Maybe in a year or so, if you get tired of Maine or I get tired of my bishop, we can shorten the commute."

I breathed out hard. "Wow, Father, I don't know what to say." Then I needed to say something or let on how deeply touched I really was. "I never really got the whole priesthood thing, myself, but I have to say, this confession deal is pretty amazing."

"In my experience, it rarely works out so well," he said. "At best, I hope for honest contrition and a few prayers."

"I could tell you to do a few 'Our Father's and 'Hail Mary's if you want, but I think it'll kill the mood."

"No need," he said.

I wanted to bounce all around the room, Dad. I wanted to bang pots and pans together, and maybe climb a tree. Instead I just asked, "Hey, I was so busy poking at your ears I didn't ask you how long you can stay."

"It's for the best, really. When you were poking at my ears, the answer was a few hours."

"And now?"

"A few days. My diocese has me on light duties until I get my feet under me, and that includes time off to readjust to civilian life. That is, if you can put me up for a few days."

"You're in luck, Father. I just came off my four days in trauma surgery, which means three days off. My guest room is your guest room, and my small town rumors are your small town rumors."

"Oh, dear. I hope the gossip doesn't hurt you or your father."

"Are you kidding? It takes me weeks to cook up something as good as this. Dad'll love it. I'll introduce you two. He'd love to meet some of the people I wrote him about." He was starting to look overwhelmed, so I backpedaled. "Tomorrow, Father. Tonight, we have dinner, talk until we're blue in the face, and counteract the blue with red from booze."

He relaxed. "Not as much booze for me, thanks. I'm trying to lay off some habits I picked up in Korea."

I figured that would make you happy. I know you worry about how much I'm drinking too, and there's no good influence on your son quite like a priest. "Right," I said. "Then we stick to blue."

I got up to pour us another glass, then switched to iced tea. Behind me, I heard Mulcahy whisper to himself, "God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform."

Now, I don't know if it was God that did this, or just dumb luck, but I was grateful. It's funny, Dad. I started this letter thinking I could finally tell you what's been eating at me, and I have. But I also got to tell you that I just might have a solution. If Korea taught me anything, it's that nothing is perfect, but that just means that we take the unexpectedly good where we can get it. I have a friend, Dad. Yeah, he's a Catholic priest and he has all the self-confidence of a pudding, but the first point is something I can accept, and the second point is something I now have the time to try to change.

I didn't get around to introducing him to you this trip, obviously, but he'll be coming up two weeks from now during my three days off, and I promise you a whole evening. Just keep the radio off, okay? It makes his hearing aid go nuts.

Your loving son,

Hawkeye


End file.
